Different Eyes
by unrepentantAuthor
Summary: A story about 'pokémorph'/'pokemorph' hybrids, personhood, genetic engineering, pokémon sapience, and personal agency. It's also a story about a cat who wants to be a person, and how she becomes one. Updates at least monthly. Physical and emotional distress, fantasy violence, and profanity. Winner of Best Speculative Fic in Bulbagarden's 2018 Summer Awards.
1. Prelude - The Hybrid Address

Hello, all. This is a fanfic I've been working on from time to time since 2006. It won Best Story and Best Dark Fic on Bulbagarden in Spring 2012 when I last published any version of it. It's a story about pokémon-human hybrids, personhood, the implications of advanced genetic engineering, pokémon sapience, and personal agency. It's also a story about a cat who wants to be a person, and how she becomes one.

I hope you enjoy it.

Updates irregularly at least monthly. Will contain upsetting scenes of physical and emotional distress, extended sequences of fantasy violence, and the use of profanity by characters.

* * *

 **Prelude**

 **The Hybrid Address**

This is a story about pokémon who become people.

But before you can read that story, you should know some things.

The following text is a transcript of a speech that wasn't meant for you — it was given to the men and women in charge of Perihelion, and you are not one of them — but it will make things clearer.

The scene is a well-lit boardroom, the occupants are all human beings. Most of them have pokéballs somewhere on their person, but not all of them. A man in a dark suit is standing at the head of the long table at which his audience sits, and a wide computer monitor beside him displays a presentation at his direction. The name on the little stand resting on the end of the table is "Ewan T. Moore." You'll learn about him later. The title page of his presentation reads "Species Hybridisation Protocol." You'll know what that means later, too.

Imagine that we are there with them. Many of their faces are expectant, curious. A few of them have wine glasses ready. One of them is fidgeting anxiously under the table. Ewan stands at ease, left hand behind his back, wearing a confident smile. His teeth are like porcelain. The tall glass windows reveal a grand and modern skyline. The man is about to speak.

 **Excerpt from address by E. T. Moore to the Perihelion board of directors, Q2 2016**

 **Perihelion Association Main Office, London**

"Welcome, all. I trust your journeys were pleasant. Now, I understand that you expect greater transparency from the executive management about our research and development programs. This is perfectly reasonable, and so I would like to take some time to tell you the facts as they really are.

This is the truth you seek:

A new form of intelligent life has come into existence.

Permit me a preamble to explain the significance of this, before I disclose our current and future enterprises.

Until now, there were two kinds of sentient life in the world. The first kind are the mundane beings we call animals, of which humans are the most remarkable species. The second kind are creatures of inscrutable energy, which have been called magical beasts, fae, daemons, _yokai_ , and in our generation, 'pokémon.'

It will soon become clear that a third kind now exists.

The relationship between humans and pokémon is intimate, despite the difficulty in communication between us. Humans are able to form bonds with pokémon, and thereby unlock their inner potential. Historically, this was done only by exceptional humans, but the mass production of 'capture balls' is changing this relationship. Now that almost any human can legally own a pokémon, they are an irrevocable part of all our lives, everywhere. There is now no symbol more widely recognised in this world than the pokéball.

Most people believe that only humans are gifted with sophisticated consciousness: abstract thought, creativity and complex language. That pokémon instead have the gift of mysterious energy, with which they wield their incredible powers. Moreover, that our physical forms are fundamentally incompatible, with no likeness between our DNA. This perspective is unsupported by modern research, but it persists nonetheless, perhaps because people are uncomfortable believing otherwise.

You may have heard rumours that in 1996, a hybrid was created by researchers in the private sector. Using genetic material from an uncatalogued pokémon species retrieved in the Guyanese Amazon, combined with the DNA of humans and other pokémon, a new kind of creature with the intellect of a human and the power of a pokémon was given life, not naturally, but through technology. This being, according to urban legend, soon destroyed its creators, and their research with them, before vanishing forever.

No significant investigation has been made into these allegations, but the idea of human-pokémon hybrids is now loose in the world as a conspiracy theory, a sci-fi trope, the stuff of children's make-believe. It grips people - the idea of a crossbreed between ourselves and pokémon, the concept of synthetic life, the thought that we might no longer be alone as intelligent beings on our world.

In truth, we have never been alone.

Pokémon intelligence aside, the hybrid life-forms, also known as 'pokémorphs,' are the third kind of sentient life, and we now share our world with them. Yes, 'life-forms,' plural. Many have been created, and more are being made even now. Only, they are no longer being cloned from fossilised DNA. They are being made from living, breathing pokémon, transformed through our innovations. It should not be surprising to learn this. There are plenty of volunteers.

After all, what pokémon wouldn't jump at the chance to become a person?"


	2. One - A Stray and Her Aspirations

**One**

 **A Stray and Her Aspirations**

Before she was a person, Salem was a cat.

As a person, Salem can tell her own story, but the story of Salem the cat must be told for her. Feline pokémon can barely ask for their humans to open doors for them, let alone explain why they want to become human. Salem was a cat who wanted to be human. This is the story that explains why. This story comes first.

Salem didn't realise the moment she chose to become human until much later, when she was no longer a cat. She chose to become human because of a moment spent cowering and afraid, crouched half-starved under a car at night.

If only she weren't a cat. If she were a human she would never have had to endure winter rain and winter cold and winter darkness. She'd have a home, or the money to pay for sanctuary and a voice to ask for it. Instead she was a pokémon — a tortoiseshell purrloin, distinguished by the long ears and hooked tail of her species — and she would have to resort to using a pokémon shelter if she wanted to be somewhere safe and warm. There was a problem with that idea, though. Shelters fed you, but they also tried to get you adopted. And Salem didn't want that. And she never would.

She wanted food, warmth, a roof above her head, and after that she didn't know. She curled her tail tighter around herself, and glanced anxiously at the various flitting shadows and wind-buffeted leaves that haunted the pavements and the park across the road from her.

Eventually she'd be hungry enough to try hunting in the park again, or rummage through someone's trash for scraps of meat. But not yet. Not quite.

If Salem were human, she'd be well-fed and warm. If she were human, she'd be with Laura.

This was the moment where she stopped wishing, and simply knew; she would become human, no matter what.

Salem first wished to be human many seasons ago, when Laura refused to let Salem come with her to school. College policy didn't permit pokémon on the premises, so when Laura left for her first day back at school after their first summer together, Salem stayed home. And waited. And wished. She'd wished every day since, for so long now that she'd begun to think of herself as pre-human, only a pokémon while she waited for the day she evolved. She would become human when she evolved, she knew. It was destined.

For now, she was a small, shivering, dark-furred pokémon, and the most human thing about her was her ability — the privilege of all purrloin — to walk short distances on her hind legs.

Having their front paws free made purrloin excellent thieves, a skill which Salem was happy to employ to obtain food. It was easy to walk into a shop and walk out with a bag of dried jerky, so long as you never tried it a second time.

Otherwise, she was typically feline. She had a dappled tortoiseshell coat, (meticulously maintained, even now), a warbling miaow with a quizzical inflection, and the talent of appearing without a sound at the rustling of food packets. Not so useful without a home and a bed and a human carer.

The memory of such things hurt, and provoked low growls in Salem's throat. These were things she'd had and then lost. It hurt, not just from her discomfort in their absence, but from the memory of their loss. Salem knew, somewhere deep inside her feline brain, that she was here, now, because of that loss. So she allowed herself to remember it — fuzzy as her memories always were — because if she forgot it, she might let herself go home.

At the time, she remembered only hazy impressions, emotions, desires. Later, of course, her memories came into focus as if adjusted on a camera. Although Salem only clearly recalled these things as a person, they were still buried in her mind as a purrloin.

Salem would never remember what the weather had been like the morning of that day, not because of her purrloin brain, but because she hadn't looked. It rained later on, but it could have started out sunny or been overcast from the beginning, for all she knew. She would be frustrated forever by this, but it had simply not been part of her routine to sit by a window until after Laura went to school. Cats like routine, and Salem's had been important to her.

That day began routinely. Her eyes opened at dawn, she stretched luxuriously, and she nudged a reluctant Laura out of bed in hopes of her drowsily squeezing a packet of food into Salem's bowl. Her previous meal of this kind had been chicken in jelly, a favourite of hers, and she'd spent the day before clinging to the memory of how it had tasted.

She wolfed down her salmon while Laura made herself crumpets. Salem prized her regular meals, but supplemented them with as many stolen or begged treats as possible. She had made the sign for 'food' so many times over many seasons that, even now, she did it on reflex when hungry: tilt head, reach paw above head, curl paw, paw to mouth.

Laura usually gave her a treat or two for signing this before she left for school, but on this occasion, she took a new bag out of the drawer, and left it there unopened. Perhaps she had been distracted while Salem signed [FOOD] several times. Still, she cuddled Salem goodbye as normal, and called her a sweet cat. Salem purred boisterously and waited until the front door closed to tear open the unsecured bag of treats with her teeth and gorge herself silly.

Salem spent school days like this waiting for Laura to come home. Laura's parents were usually out most of the day and generally took their pokémon with them, so she had the house to herself. She used this freedom to laze about uninterrupted. She had plenty of naps, mostly spent sprawled out in that one spot on the kitchen counter, where the updraught from the tumble-dryer kept her warm. From there, she watched taillow in flight and dreamed of pokémon battles and of a future with Laura in which they went on grand adventures.

Sometimes in Salem's dreams, she was not the pokémon, but the trainer. Human or purrloin, she was always Laura's partner in her dreams. (Later, curled under vehicles and hedges to sleep, Salem's dreams never featured such a partnership, and she was always, always human.)

Laura didn't come home that day until much later than she was supposed to. This was happening more and more often each moon, and she already came home later than she used to. Salem managed to enjoy her time alone by keeping to a routine and sleeping heavily, but by late afternoon she was restless. Restless Salem would pace through the house in endless loops, groom herself and groom herself again, and scratch doors and furniture over and over until her claws hurt.

Of course, nobody was around to see her behave like this, and her claw-marks were indistinguishable from years of previous gashes.

When Laura finally came home, it was early evening. Salem jumped up on the stand by the door, like always, to receive scratches behind her ears, like always.

"Hello, silly cat," Laura said, like always.

Salem's habitual reply to this was to turn her left paw pad-upward and curl it inward, approximating a human beckoning gesture, and then brush her own cheek. This was as communicative as she could manage in standard pokésign. She'd signed [WELCOME HOME] as best she could, like always. She was really good at signing that, after years of practice. Other than that and 'food,' her signing was stilted, and her vocabulary painfully limited.

Laura went straight to heat up a meal for herself, with Salem sprawled on top of the microwave, soaking up the warmth and purring to match the vibrations. Then Laura forked out half a can of food for Salem, and took it to her room so Salem could eat nearby her as usual. Laura found an episode of _'Gotta Catch 'em All'_ on her laptop and played it while they ate.

It was Laura's favourite show, so of course it was Salem's too. Laura once spent a moon mimicking the voices of the pokémon characters, who would only speak in their species names rather than realistic sounds or with pokésign. Laura said it was too expensive to animate pokésign, and the show was only a marketing tool to sell pokéballs anyway. Salem had no idea what that meant, but certainly the show taught Laura a great many species names despite being unabashedly fantastical. Salem couldn't have signed [P-I-K-A-C-H-U] if she tried.

Even more fancifully, the show featured a villainous but endearing meowth, who had taught himself to speak English. At least every other episode, he was shown wearing clothes, working a job, or using tools. Salem thought he was practically human. He didn't have a name, he was just "Meowth," but he was still their favourite character. Laura used to encourage Salem to copy his example, and was only a little disappointed when Salem could only miaow, purr and chirrup. At least her miaows sounded a little like "meowth." Salem persisted in private for several moons, until with much frustration, she gave up on ever speaking a word. She never quite forgot her dream of talking to humans in their own tongue.

After the show, Salem expected to curl up by Laura's side and listen to her read stories, like she always did. Laura tickled Salem's chin and signed [NO] with her free hand. "Sorry, kitten. I've had a long day and I still have homework to do! There was some big news today, too. Let's just chill, shall we?"

Outrageous!

But Salem's outrage didn't stop Laura from moving her laptop to her desk and getting to work. This would not do. Laura tried to do whatever 'homework' was so important, but Salem kept butting her head against Laura's leg, and miaowed raucously, until her human finally relented. Laura clambered into bed, leaning against the headboard, and opened the anthropology magazine that they'd started reading the night before. Salem manoeuvred her way into the crook of Laura's arm and gazed wide-eyed at the photographs as Laura read the accompanying text.

Salem spent all day every day waiting for this. Each night, without fail, Laura would read to her about countless subjects, from the natural world, to human history, to pokémon battles. With each bedtime reading, Salem would snatch a new truth, each one more precious than the last. There were great forests across the ocean still untouched by humans and their cities. People had once lived in caves and hunted with sharpened sticks, without microwaves and lamps and books to use. Humans could form bonds with their partners that made them more powerful than any wild pokémon.

At night, Salem would churn these ideas over and over in the mill of her mind, trying to grasp the big picture, to form a proper understanding of the world, and always having it slip away from her. She hoped that by learning everything Laura could share with her, that, like Meowth, she could teach herself to be more human. Being human meant never having to be bored and alone again.

Even when Laura became exasperated with her insistence and her questions, like she was now, Salem remained desperate to drink up every word, on any topic. Eventually, of course, Laura tired of reading. It didn't take so long this time.

"Salem, I'm done. Seriously, I still have way too much to do."

[WHAT?] signed Salem, cocking her head and chirping uncertainly.

"Mostly uni applications. Plus my normal work. And I got home late, too, so, just, ugh. Basically ugh."

That meant nothing to her. She cocked her head the other way and chirped again. If she did that, Laura would know to explain in a way she understood.

Laura groaned, and spoke with care. "Okay, so it's like this. Uni is school that comes after school. And I have to do a lot of work so that I can go to uni. Because if I go to uni, then when I'm done, I can get a better job."

Salem kept cocking her head. She didn't know how to ask "but what about our adventure? Why are you doing this and not that?" so she just signed [TRAINER] in desperation, mimicking the overarm throw that humans used to release a pokémon from their ball at range.

"What? Trainer? No, Salem, sweetheart." Laura brushed her dark hair from her face, which she always did when saying something important, and gently stroked Salem's cheek fur, which she always did when was about to disappoint her. "I'm not going to be a trainer. You need to start young to do that professionally, and have the right support, and I didn't, and I don't." She signed some of the key ideas as she spoke. [NO TRAINER. I CAN'T.]

[TRAINER!] Salem signed again, harder this time. Her tail thrashed anxiously.

"No, kitten. I can't just run away and battle with you. I don't have the money. I don't have my parents' permission. I don't want to, really. It's one of those things — kids all play at pokémon training, but barely any of them actually run the League circuit when they turn whatever age. It's like how loads of kids want to be astronauts, but there's only like, two astronauts from the UK. I think. Pokémon training is… I'm not meant for it. Those playground battles we had with other kids never meant we were going to travel the world doing it seriously. You never even learnt any good moves! And fighting hurts. I'm going to study finance, cause that's supposed to be good for employability…"

But the words didn't mean anything to Salem. She didn't understand 'money' even after all Laura's previous explanations. She didn't understand 'permission' or 'astronauts' or 'meant for it'. She didn't understand why Laura didn't care, didn't want this, didn't yearn for their shared adventure the way she always had.

She signed helplessly, every piece of communication a continuous struggle. Her paws and body gave her more range of expression than a serperior, or a lanturn, or worse, a voltorb with no extremities at all, but they were still nothing to a human's hands and face. Her vocabulary was stunted, too; pokésign only accommodated simple ideas. 'Yes, no, over here, I'm hungry, please stop.'

It was difficult enough to think of what she wanted to say and more difficult still to find a way to say it. Under normal circumstances, she was constantly distracted by the temperature, ambient sounds, loose threads of clothing. Even when focused as she was now, she could never hold more than one, maybe two ideas in her head at once.

When asking about their future adventures went nowhere, she tried to ask something else — [I COME WITH YOU?] — not difficult to sign, but difficult for her to ask with her hopes so recently discarded.

"Salem, pokémon aren't allowed in halls, honey. I might have roommates that don't want pokémon around. 'Roommates,' that's like, friends who I live with, I mean. You'll have to stay home. I'm sorry, kitty."

Roommates. Friends who Laura lived with, instead of Salem. Laura already spent so much time with friends without Salem, now Salem would always be without Laura.

She tried to ask if she would see Laura — if there would be visits — and miaowed her general distress.

[I SEE YOU? YOU WITH ME?]

"What? Oh, of course I'll come see you! Everyone comes home from uni for winter holidays."

[MORE?]

"Every year, yes! Don't worry, I'll come back!"

But not every day. Not enough to stop Salem pacing and grooming and scratching for days on days on days.

It was hopeless.

Laura evidently agreed, because after a few minutes of this, her alarm went off and she said "That's enough. Really. I really have to do my work, so please, please leave me alone." She took off from the bed and threw herself into her desk chair, headphones on, fingers tapping at the keyboard.

Normally, Salem would have lain down by the laptop's fan for warmth, or batted at Laura's fingers, or walked in front of the screen for attention.

But…

'Leave me alone,' Laura had said.

She had never said that before.

So Salem left her alone.

She slunk out of the room, went out the flap into the back garden, and left Laura behind. She could never quite explain why, only that she couldn't stay after that, and that she couldn't go back even when she was desperate for tinned food and packets of treats.

It had been moons since, but the time between then and now was unimportant. The only important day was today. Today Salem would muster up the nerve to go to the pokémon shelter and ask for help. The time spent cold and afraid — that didn't matter. What mattered was no longer being cold or afraid, or hungry, or vulnerable, or tired, or lonely.

If only she were human.

Being human meant never being cold and hungry again.


	3. Two

_AN: Apologies for the wait, but rest assured I intend to keep updating twice monthly despite real life concerns. All civil reviews welcome, whether deeply critical analysis or brief comments of encouragement. Thank you!_

 _Edit: "reviews" making no mention of my story but serving only to attack other users will be reported for abuse._

* * *

 **Two**

Salem watched the front window of the local pokémon shelter from the scant canopy of leaves she was hiding in - several shrubs clustered in the grassy median beside a small car park. It wasn't ideal. She had to press herself low to the ground, which was damp, cold, and shared with worms and insects. Her fur was dark and the winter sun was already retiring, so this hiding place would keep her well out of sight. Yet, it hardly felt like safety. The short flights of the winter sun and her ability to hide at its setting were not a nightly reassurance, but a reminder of all the other pokémon that could be stalking her from the same darkness.

The moon came out from behind the clouds, and briefly lit up the terrain. Salem shrunk back further into the greenery and glowered at it. Its illumination may have been a comforting constant from inside a house, but now it made her visible, and therefore vulnerable. It occurred to her that the moon had lived two full lives since she'd last eaten a proper meal. Slept on furniture. Been petted.

The moon withdrew behind cloud cover, and darkness returned. The pokémon shelter was brightly lit from inside, which gave her perfect vision of the interior. There was one human inside. A young man. After studying him for a few days, Salem felt she could read him well. He was a calm person, never moving suddenly or crying out. She liked that. She had begun to wait for a time when she was certain that nobody else but him was about. If she approached the shelter with only him present, she'd be less vulnerable. Or maybe she was only waiting because she still needed to work up the nerve.

The first few nights she'd done this, a silver-tabby glameow tom had come to join her. He'd taken a perch on the wall around the car park, posed like a sphinx, watching her openly from his exposed position without regard to his own concealment, let alone hers. On one of these nights, he seemed to taunt her. A low, strained miaow, certain subtle flicks of his ears and tail. [BAD HUNTER.] An accusation.

She replied with mirrored gestures and a turn of the head. [NOT HUNTING.]

A brief, shrill chirrup, a certain blink: [YES, THAT'S IT.] By this he meant, "exactly, a good hunter would be hunting right now." Perhaps he was actually trying to be helpful, but even so he only managed to raise her hackles.

Salem focused her attention on the shelter rather than on him, and he seemed to lose interest for a time, only to return not long after with a dead mouse, freshly caught. The glameow offered her the first bite, nudging the morsel towards her with his nose. She looked away. At the time, she hadn't understood her position. She hadn't been ready to trade pride for food. He persisted a little while, before finally eating the mouse himself within earshot, punctuating each crunch with small growls of enjoyment that made Salem's belly growl in kind. As he did this, the shelter lights went out. That was Salem's cue to leave.

Every time Salem got up off her haunches to turn away from the shelter, her stomach stabbed at her resolve. When she'd spurned the mouse it had been bearable. Now, she'd been doing this for days and it was a constant gnawing in her gut. There were never enough hunting or scavenging opportunities to keep her strength up. She had made no allies. She had found no home. She wished she had not turned down the glameow tom, for perhaps she would have had several more meals, by now. Food, but also a friend. Sooner or later she would walk through that door and face whatever consequence awaited, or she would give up on ever walking in and eventually meet an unambiguously grim fate.

Tonight the human in the shelter was doing his peculiar ritual with the machine at the front desk. Soon he would start turning the lights off. Last chance to go to him tonight. Last chance before another cold and hungry sleep. Somewhere in the street, she was sure the eyes of another local feral pokémon were trained on her. Last chance.

Salem emerged from under the bushes and approached the shelter door, feeling the moon's light on her fur like teeth. She reached the door and got up on her hind legs to push it open. It shook, but remained closed. She pushed again, and her paws slipped, so she scrabbled at the glass indignantly. The human didn't notice, so she miaowed; her voice was strained and squeaky in her ears.

Finally, the human spotted her. He watched her for a second, rubbed one eye, and got up to let her inside. The moment the gap was large enough to accommodate her whiskers, she bounded indoors and up onto the front desk, where she crouched defensively with her chin against her paws. The young man scratched his neck as he appraised her from one angle, then another.

"Well, you're an unhappy looking thing," he said at last.

Salem made a noise of discomfort and frustration. A tilt of her head and a 'grabbing' gesture from above her head down towards her mouth - [FOOD] - communicated her first need in hasty, dramatic pokésign.

"What's that? Oh, right."

The human set to work finding her a clean bowl and some food. She considered signing not to bother with the bowl, but it would take too long to make herself understood. Instead, she wailed incessantly until the food was ready. Within several breaths, he'd found her some jellied meat chunks, into which she shoved her head to wolf down before he'd even let go.

"Wow," he said. "A purrloin, huh? You know, normally when we get new arrivals, they come with a person handing them to us. You're gonna make my paperwork pretty difficult, friend."

She ignored him, paying all her attention to the food. When she was done, she looked up at him with broad pupils, intent on getting more, but he shook his head, smiling. Like most humans, he smiled with his eyes too far open. Laura knew to close her eyes properly.

"I'll get you some more food in a minute, Purrloin, but if you eat too much all at once after going hungry, it'll disagree with you."

Salem didn't quite believe the excuse, but she could wait for more food. She twitched an ear, pushed her head towards him: a gesture which meant, more or less, "Who are you?"

"Oh, my name's Jamie. I'm in charge of this place, more or less. You, uh, know what this is, right? You didn't just turn up at random?"

A nod, and a paw gesture. [YES.]

"Oh right, good. Okay. Well, I can let you sleep here and I'll give you food but first I'll have to give you a check up, register you as best I can, that sort of thing. You got a microchip?"

'Microchip'? The sounds were familiar. She guessed the answer.

[YES.]

"Huh. Gotcha. That's a welcome surprise. I guess you don't have a pokéball?"

She shook her head. An awkward movement for her, but humans always understood it.

Jamie hummed to himself, and fetched some papers from a drawer in his desk. As he sat and wrote on them, he let Salem smell his hand. Jamie smelled of pokémon, mostly. All kinds, but especially feline and canine. Also, food. Soon, Salem had persuaded Jamie to feed her another bowl - fish, this time - and he'd scanned her chip.

"Salem, huh? Good name for a black cat, I guess. Or black-white-and-tan, close enough. A witch's cat, named for a town of witches."

Salem didn't really understand, but those were definitely colour words. He was describing her for some reason. She flicked both ears back and forth as she ate. [OKAY.]

"Looks like you belonged to a Laura Weir. Ring any bells?"

[YES,] she replied. Her tail flicked in dissatisfaction. [UNHAPPY.]

"Yikes, okay. I won't ask. But I still have to do my job, just so you know. I can skip calling up this Laura if you really don't want me to, but I still have to do my best to get you adopted. I hope you're okay with that."

Her tail kept twitching in protest, but she signed her assent. [OKAY. UNHAPPY.]

Jamie sighed, but he gave her a closed-mouth smile and blinked slowly at her like he was supposed to. She wasn't ready return that gesture of trust, but it did make her feel a little better, so she stopped eating long enough to bow her head for a breath's span: [THANK-YOU.]

"Hey, no problem. It's my job to take care of you, after all."

When Salem had finished her food, Jamie yawned and put his pen down.

"I'm too tired for this, Salem. Normally I'd be home by now. Let's get you to sleep."

Jamie's idea of a nest for her wasn't a comfortable spot on a bed, but one of the many padded mats in the shared room behind his desk. Most of the mats already had pokémon occupants, generally small mammals, but also some birds and reptiles. She'd never shared a sleeping space with anyone but Laura. She wasn't ready to be unconscious around other pokémon yet.

While Salem peeked inside out of simple curiosity, a fluffy white rockruff spotted her, and was immediately wagging their tail and perking their ears. Alert, agitated. A threat display? She backed away, her tail quivering uncertainly.

"It's okay, Salem. He's making friends!"

Friends? She wasn't sure Jamie was right. But she could try. She signed friendly intent, or something like it, blinking slowly and holding her tail up. The rockruff let out a couple of muffled 'woofs', not barking so loud as to wake any sleeping pokémon, but loud enough to startle her.

She growled her disapproval, and nimbly darted out of Jamie's potential reach, hissing sharply when he approached. After a round of ineffective persuasion and cajoling from the human and insistent, defensive pokésign from her, he relented. He sighed, his hands on his hips.

"Look, I'm not taking you home with me, no matter how much fuss you make. So I'm going to let you stay in the storefront with some water and a basket, but only if you promise not to mess with anything until I'm back tomorrow, alright?"

That was too many words. She tilted her head to make Jamie explain.

He did, carefully: "You can stay here. In this room. But you have to promise to behave. Okay?"

She tried to remember the movements she needed. Hesitantly, she tried them out. Paw to her mouth, then down to her chest. [PROMISE.]

Of course, a promise made like that didn't count for anything.

She was given a spot for her sleeping mat on the front desk. Jamie's gaze lingered on her when he locked the door, his non-feline expression difficult for her to interpret. She met his stare evenly until he turned away, climbed into his car, and left. She had the night to herself at last, it seemed.

A soft chirruping call from behind her sent her whirling into a fierce stance, hackles raised. Her would-be opponent made no such aggressive overtures. Salem was facing a long, lithe creature with cream and violet fur, alert eyes, prominent whiskers. Long, flowing fur hanging down from the forelegs like over-sized sleeves. Female scent, and the scent of Jamie. Salem backed down. The mienshao waved one of her limp 'sleeves' at Salem and briefly rolled on the ground in a show of friendliness, and Salem acknowledged the gesture with a peaceable slow blink.

Mienshao's pokésign was extraordinary. Dextrous movements with her paws, subtle movements of ears and tail, easy mastery of accent-signs using whips of her fur sleeves. It was stunningly complex, hard to follow, and made Salem deeply envious. As Mienshao signed, she also vocalised in an eager chatter which Salem had almost no understanding of whatsoever.

[I watch this place - I do this at night - at night humans are absent - I must care for pokémon - new pokémon like you who are here.]

Salem could take care of herself from here. She tried signing back, ears flattening in concentration.

[AM OKAY. NO HELP.]

[It is okay! - I will help you!]

[NO.]

[This way - this way!]

Either her articulation was more crude than she'd realised, or Mienshao was just oblivious.

Not for the first time, Salem felt that even if she had a mienshao's body, it still wouldn't be enough for her. She did her best with what she had, but the thoughts in her head were more than she knew how to say even with pokésign as fluent as that. She was smart for a feline pokémon, or she thought so, but really she was only smart enough to realise how much was beyond her grasp. She had to strain to understand almost all of what humans said to her, living on best-guesses and uncertain interpretations. She tried all the time. Tried so hard to understand. And this mienshao probably understood so much more than she did without really trying.

While Salem was staring into space, tail twitching in bitter exasperation, Mienshao had carried a small, cushioned basket into the storefront, and now offered it to Salem. It smelled offensively of mienshao musk, but it was still more comfortable than the mat. Salem supposed Mienshao must have a nocturnal routine, not that it mattered. She seized the gift, kneading the cushioning eagerly. Mienshao chirruped her delight and went on to bring her a water bowl and litter tray. She hadn't used a tray in seasons; Laura's family had a garden she'd usually gone in. Given the peculiar smell, she could figure out the idea.

A couple of the other pokémon in the shelter tried to get her attention by vocalising or signing things to her through the doorway, but she turned away, curling up tight. They could wait. She didn't want to talk, only to rest, and let the warmth of the shelter sink into her bones a little. There were some aches in her body she hadn't even noticed were there until they'd already begun to subside. In Mienshao's basket, Salem drifted off within a few short breaths.

She had shallow, fitful dreams, interrupted frequently by the sounds of traffic or of other pokémon, and filled with distorted memories, running, and hiding. When she woke from a dream about a fight - not a battle for fun, but for survival - she did not return to sleep. It was the deep night, what Laura had always called the witching hour.

Salem soon found herself sat at the front window, staring out at the moon, thinking that it, at least, was constant and sincere. She felt as if she were not truly experiencing that moment in person, but simply recalling some extraordinarily vivid memory. The moon shone as if to seek out her eyes alone, and her eyes welcomed it. No matter how her life changed, she would always have the moon.

But she only had the moon until dawn, even the late dawn of the winter sun.


	4. Three

Sorry for the last-minute update, I've been having a hell of a time. I might have to reduce the update frequency to once a month if things don't improve, but I'll continue to do the best I can. Enjoy, and as always, feedback of any kind, however critical or however brief, is most welcome.

* * *

 **Three**

Salem woke from another dream in which she had been a human, only to find she was still a purrloin, for now.

In this dream, she had been unable to speak, only to sign falteringly as she already did. She distracted herself from the memory of it by searching by scent for the mienshao, who she found curled up on a shelf between pokémon products, napping soundly. She considered curling up there as well, but she didn't know how well Mienshao was likely to take it.

When Jamie returned in the morning, Salem was waiting on the front desk, grooming herself. Her swishing tail betrayed her restlessness, but it perked up as he approached. He acknowledged her cheerfully, and when he reached out to stroke her head she did not shrink back, hoping for the first gentle scratching around her ears in moons. Instead, he tickled her chin - this was new, it was different, most of all it wasn't as good! She tensed up around her shoulders as she warily accepted his peculiar affection.

It was still good to be petted again.

"We've got some visitors later on," he told her, "so don't be surprised by them! People who work here, people dropping off strays like yourself, maybe guests who might want to take you home with them."

She growled at this.

"One weird one too," he continued unabashed. "There's this woman who booked a slot for later today who says she's interested in taking on as many pokémon as volunteer for her project, whatever it is. Something about pokémon research, I didn't understand it. I'd rather get you back home, or else find you a new home, but maybe you'll be interested in her, huh?"

Salem couldn't answer. How could she know if she'd be interested? She hadn't met this human yet.

Jamie went on, rubbing her flank in a way that was only slightly preferable to the chin-tickling thing. "Actually, lemme think. It was research, yeah. For sure. She's trying to improve communication with pokémon, maybe even to find better ways for pokémon to live with humans. Working together outside of battling, I mean. That's about the size of it anyway."

A pulse of anticipation shook her body. Had he said what she'd thought he said? She decided at once to pay careful attention once this person arrived. She couldn't stay here, she knew that already. Staying here meant being pressured to let someone adopt her. That meant being left at home all day, obviously. This - she didn't know what it sounded like, but it sounded better.

Much better.

At this point, she was still perfectly ignorant of the choice she was soon to make.

The sun was still young when Salem finished her morning meal. Its lives were shorter each day. This winter dawn was feeble, not quite able to illuminate the trees and buildings visible from her spot on the reception desk. Clouds overhead threatened to stifle it further. To Salem, it was a sun struggling to be born. Struggling to change.

Jamie soon released the other pokémon into a spacious yard behind the shelter to do as they pleased, but Salem stayed in the front room, as if by refusing to enter any other space in the shelter she could avoid committing herself being adopted, while still receiving the food and warmth which Jamie provided. At least until the person Jamie had mentioned arrived. Instead, she tailed him around the store and watched him work. He did a little to open the shelter's storefront, but mostly he sat at his computer typing. Salem wished that she could read. It was a familiar wish, which flowed readily over the grooves in her brain where it had run before. Every time she wished to read, she wished harder. The grooves deepened. But she did not become literate.

Jamie mistook her spying for friendliness at first, but realised she was wasn't looking for attention when she batted his hand away with her paw so she could keep her eyes on his work as his fingers clattered away at the keys. She reached out and pressed a paw to the keyboard just to see what it felt like. Clack! Interesting. He smiled at her and shook his head.

"What am I going to do with you, huh?"

She made no sound, no sign. The shelter wasn't quite real yet, but every word she heard from Jamie made it more so. Whenever he spoke, it was more familiar, more comforting. She didn't know where she wanted to end up, but it wasn't in another domestic home. It wasn't here.

"You know, I'm sure your owner would love to see you again."

She hissed at Jamie, baring her teeth for long enough to send a message.

"Right, right. Fair enough." Thus chided, Jamie went back to his work.

More humans arrived sooner than Salem was ready for. She liked Jamie! Jamie was becoming familiar. These ones were all new and crowded around in the same space! When she lived with Laura she had avoided being around more than two humans at once - it was too many for her. She couldn't do that now, so, she waited behind Jamie's desk until they separated. Soon, the first was sent by Jamie to tend to the pokémon in the shared room, and the other to unpack and distribute new supplies and merchandise for the shelter.

Salem followed the second human around as she stacked shelves, watching her work and studying her behaviour. She was more like Laura's mother than like Laura, taller and stronger and more deliberate in her movements. She spotted Salem after a few minutes, and cooed her adoration, stopping to pet her. And this time - an ear scratching! Yes! Perfect! Salem leaned into it, purring like a motor.

"Aw, Jamie, who's this? What are they, a glameow?" called the human girl.

"She's a purrloin, Kelly! You can tell by the tail, she's got that hook at the tip. Glameow have spiral tails."

"Ah, gotcha! Who's a sweet little purrloin? Huh? You're so pretty!"

So, this human female was going to talk to her like that. That wasn't ideal at all. Salem signed her objection: [STOP - LISTEN!]

The girl turned to Jamie, frowning. "Hey, she's signing now. What's she signing?"

Oh. This one couldn't understand sign.

"Can't see from here! Don't get distracted, Kelly."

"Oh, okay!"

Never mind then. Wait, what was-

The girl scooped Salem up without so much as a warning, and lifted the cat onto her shoulder. Unacceptable! Salem gave a shrill growl and leapt down, pushing off hard from her arm. She cried out in surprise, but did not pursue. Salem left her at a pace, already fretting that the other human might do something similarly startling.

The boy who'd gone to tend to the other pokémon was coming back into the storefront now, apparently in search of Jamie. He looked much older to Salem - greying hair was a sign of ageing in humans, she knew that much - and when she sniffed at his feet she detected wet soil, and the pungent smell of garden fertiliser. She miaowed for his attention, and he looked down at her with his eyes narrowed.

"James, one of the pokémon is in here. Is that allowed?" he asked, the deepness of his voice surprising Salem.

"Sure! You can say hello if you like."

He stooped to hold out a hand for her to sniff, which was the proper way to do things. He stroked her head, not too hard. Good. This one was okay. She liked this one already.

"Alright, pussycat, I'd best be on my way," he said. And then he stood back up and headed off to the back yard.

That was it?

Okay.

Okay…

She could handle positive relations with Jamie, she decided. He was the reasonable one. The leader, rightly so. The others, his coworkers? Less familiar, unpredictable, likely to do something objectionable. All the more reason to keep to Jamie's side. To this end, she allowed him to pet her chin occasionally, and did not bite him when it tickled. Sadly, he didn't get the hint when she tried head-butting his fingers.

More staff came to filter in past Jamie into the rest of the shelter. She signed to the ones with reassuring body language, and a white-coated vet even signed back for a minute, and signed well! But she was busy, and couldn't stay. Jamie narrated some of what he and his colleagues did to Salem, as if he were compelled by the power of her curiosity alone to think aloud in her presence.

"You know, we've got a lot of larger pokémon in the sheds out back. Biggest one is the mudsdale. We call him Clayton. He's a big boy, he needs plenty of room. We don't like to keep you guys in balls too much if we can help it. It's not healthy, you know."

'You know,' he kept saying. She did not know. She knew very little, in fact.

"Salem, you really should stop pestering people with jobs to do. Go outside, there's lots of friends to make out there!"

No, she wasn't ready for that. Humans were hard enough. Pokémon besides other cats would be even harder. But Jamie kept encouraging her to go out back and socialise, and she kept refusing. Eventually, he went that way himself, hoping she would follow him. She resolved not to. She washed herself. She glared suspiciously at the girl stacking shelves. She quickly became bored. And finally, she relented.

There were a few pokémon still in the indoor commons, some sleeping, some watching from high perches, the rockruff chewing privately on his favourite toy. He looked up from his treat and whined plaintively at Salem, tail wagging. She wondered whether he actually knew any pokésign. Perhaps he was only a pup and hadn't learnt any yet. He was very small after all. The thought that he might not know any sign was still somehow upsetting - how could she make herself understood to him? How would humans manage to interpret his needs?

[FRIENDLY,] she signed.

The rockruff just cocked his head, clueless. The other pokémon here were uninterested in interaction, it seemed. They didn't respond to her miaows or signs, as a rule. A large, beige-scaled lizard - a helioptile, maybe? - signed a crude [SLEEP] at her before closing their eyes and drifting off again beneath a heat lamp. Maybe all the sociable pokémon went outside during the day.

Salem gave up on them and walked past the rockruff pup to the yard. There, she saw a multitude of pokémon running, playing, grooming each other. A furret was chasing an aipom around the circumference of the grass, apparently for the sheer joy of it. She realised at once that she hadn't the faintest idea how to approach any of them. She knew how humans worked, she knew how battles worked, she even vaguely knew how territory disputes worked, more or less. But this was completely unfamiliar to her.

She began by approaching another dog pokémon as he finished lapping water from a bowl just outside (she wasn't sure of the species) and signing her friendly intent. He wagged his tail fervently and hunched up with his head against the ground, signing for playtime with his ears. Salem boxed his head lightly, experimenting, and he responded with mock-snaps near her head.

They continued like this for a minute, their styles of play-fighting not quite matching up, before the dog - a herdier, that was the species! - gave up and rolled over, presumably in submission.  
Salem licked his head in peaceable fashion, but she knew she wouldn't get any proper conversation out of him. What she really wanted was someone who would talk to her and even groom together (since getting a human to read something to her seemed impossible right now). But she didn't see any other cats that were otherwise unoccupied. This could be a frustrating day, she realised.

She checked for Jamie - he was grooming a piloswine with a fine comb. He'd be there a while, then. Good. Salem scanned the yard in hopes of finding another pokémon like mienshao. One who was more human-like in form and behaviour and therefore likely to know plenty of pokésign. She found one in the shelter of a barn at the far end of the yard, signing stories to a small audience of attentive pokémon huddled together against the massive flank of Clayton the mudsdale.

The storyteller was a throh: a squat, stout, brick-red humanoid clothed in a white martial arts gi, something throh supposedly hand-crafted themselves. On his shoulder perched a chatot, a small and colourful bird, who alternately whistled accompanying tunes and voiced the narration in human words. The pronunciation was terrible, but Salem was awed. The throh grunted expressively as he signed, sometimes laughed at the reactions of his audience, and scratched illustrations in the dirt with his stubby fingers, his prodigious black brow furrowing with concentration. A couple of times he managed short human words, or approximations of them, but the chatot did most of the spoken work.

Salem joined the crowd a little way off, and listened. She was hearing the tail-end of a story about how humans learnt how to make 'strong stone' from a tribe of conkeldurr many, many years ago. They must have meant concrete! The throh's signing was not as elegant as Mienshao's, but it was more careful, more articulate: [Afterwards, humans began to use strong stone to build a city, and then there were many cities, and then there were many humans to live there, now because of this the forest became smaller, and the pokémon did not thrive the way humans thrived.]

The chatot chirped their rough translation, adding their own spin as the story continued. "What's that? What's that? Conkeldurr don't like it, gonna tell 'em off, naughty people, naughty people! People wanna have a cake and eat! Say, no no no! Don't tell me what to do! Conkeldurr boss, he says, please be nice now! Gave you strong stone! People say, you conkeldurr boss, not the boss of me! Forgetting strong stone gift!"

Just then, another shelter volunteer called to Jamie from the building - there was a particular visitor at the front door. He walked back inside and Salem ran back to follow him, unwilling to be left alone with the other pokémon just yet and eager to see this visitor, surely the one Jamie had told her about earlier.

The visitor was indeed much different to the others. She carried herself differently, dressed differently - although Salem could not at the time quite pick up on exactly how. Alisha was young, female, and smelled mostly - almost entirely in fact - of pokémon, but also of things that Salem couldn't place. She dressed very differently to humans Salem was used to, although at the time she didn't consider that useful information. She had much, much longer hair and darker skin than the humans Salem was familiar with, too. There was something else, something not quite perceptible, in her eyes and her movement that Salem was sure was unique to her among humans. When she entered the shelter, she slow-blinked at Salem before talking to Jamie. Feeling immediately reassured, Salem returned the gesture. There could have been no better introduction for her.

Salem couldn't follow the human conversation perfectly. Jamie spoke clearly and simply enough for her to catch the gist, but Alisha talked fast and used words Salem had never heard before. She could make a stab at some of them, if she tried hard. She concentrated, and gleaned knowledge scrap by scrap: Alisha wanted pokémon who were different. Ones who should be somewhere other than here, who couldn't be domestic pets or journey with a trainer. 'Re-homing' wasn't quite 'home' and Salem only knew 'work' as Laura's school books, but she knew 'misfits'.

Misfits was her.

Jamie showed Alisha the pokémon outside, talking all the while, and Salem watched from the door as this unfamiliar human went forward to meet them. Alisha went from one, then to another, examining and speaking carefully to each of them in turn. She spent longer with the ones who signed back, and longest with the throh and chatot pair. Salem wanted to run over and be the next to sign to her - but she waited her turn to communicate with this human who took the time to use sign with pokémon.

Once Alisha had spoken with all the pokémon that caught her interest she selected a few, calling to each of them to follow her. Salem sat with her tail at attention, quivering with anticipation as this strange human approached.

"What about that one? The tortie purrloin," Alisha asked.

"Oh, that's Salem," replied Jamie. "She turned up last night all on her own. Nobody with her."

"Salem, huh? I've got a good feeling about her. How about it?"

"I don't know, I can't really let you have her so soon, I haven't given her a proper checkup or finished registering her or anything yet."

"We've got veterinary staff, so we're fine for checkups."

"Still. Procedure. Actually, I've already emailed her previous owner earlier today and I'm waiting for a reply. Almost everyone wants their missing pokémon back, naturally, but I guess if I haven't heard back in a week, it'd be okay to write them off and you could take her then."

"Can I at least ask, uh, Salem if she wants to come?"

"I could be in trouble if her owner finds I've let her pokémon walk out the door, sorry. She stays. All the best to you, though!"

"Same to you."

Salem felt as if she'd swallowed a gallbladder whole, bitter bile and all. Jamie had already contacted Laura. He wouldn't let Alisha make her an offer. He wouldn't let her go. Her lip pulled back to snarl at Jamie, but she stopped herself. It wouldn't help her to scold him. She had a better idea. The idea was this: Alisha was surely soon to leave, and Salem could go with her, with or without Jamie's permission. To 're-homing' and 'work' and 'misfits'. It wouldn't be easy, though.

The problem was this: Jamie wanted to keep her here for Laura to find. If she tried to follow Alisha out through the door, Jamie would certainly try to stop her. And Alisha might even help him, even while meaning well, because humans were just like that. They always, always chose what other humans wanted instead of what pokémon wanted. But if Salem could escape Jamie's notice, maybe Alisha would take her with her. Salem needed another route to whatever life Alisha was offering, one that avoided Jamie entirely, and she had one. She'd studied the shelter carefully, and Jamie too. She knew how humans moved and perceived. She could do this. She began to make a plan.

As she did so, Jamie fetched paper for Alisha to write on, and collected her chosen few in their balls and gave them to her along with a bag of supplies and more paper. Once Alisha was done writing, she said something quietly to the pokéballs, and blew on each of them lightly. The pokémon inside wouldn't know she'd done that, but maybe the gesture was for her own benefit rather than for theirs. Then the humans kept talking, making light conversation in the way that humans did when they made their extended farewells. Salem had her plan now, fixed in her mind.

The plan was this: The fence around the outdoor commons was high, but she had more determination than the fence had height. She could run silently through the indoor commons and out into the back yard, then vault the fence into the car park while Alisha was still loading her things into her car.

Salem did all this without feeling Jamie's attention on her, scarcely even being noticed by the other pokémon, and landing softly on the tarmac out front without a graze. She looked at the car, almost expecting to see it leaving the parking lot. Her breath caught. Alisha had left a window open. She leapt for the gap, paws clutching the rim of the car door, anxious with every second taken to pull herself up that Jamie might rush out and retrieve her.

Jamie raised his voice. Did he see-?

Salem tumbled into the car, ducked down out of sight. Winded. Alert. Her ears pricked for his approach.

Nothing. Just laughter and human conversation.

Minutes later, when Alisha drove away from the shelter, Salem was pressed flat against the floor of the car with her claws gripping the surface and her jaw tightly shut. Beneath her growing nausea, continuing stress, and the noise of the road, Salem thought about how Alisha had wanted to ask her to come. Ask, not demand. Someone like that would talk to her. Listen to her. Even treat her like a person. Whatever Alisha's 'work' turned out to be, it would be worth toughing out the car ride just for that.

She didn't know it yet, but very soon, Salem would indeed be a person.


	5. Four - The Culmination of a Cat

Thanks for your patience, everyone. The next update is already finished and will be up fairly soon, although it is only a short one. Chapter Five is well on its way. To those that don't know, there's now a worldbuilding thread for this story, which you can find on the Bulbagarden Written Word forum. Please do take a glance and ask some questions. And enjoy!

* * *

 **Four**

 **The Culmination of a Cat  
**

Oh! How Salem wanted to yowl out loud! Of course, even if she'd dared to cry out she couldn't have managed to with her torso so tensed up. Instead she only gripped the fabric of the seat-well harder with every swerve and acceleration, her flank thumping against the car until she felt bruised. She began to wish that she would pass out, but she just kept clinging on. Nothing could be as painful as Alisha heading back to the shelter.

By the time Alisha stopped the car, Salem's limbs ached, her whole body was exhausted, and her belly had churned itself into a nausea she feared would never subside. Still, the car had stopped, and that meant they had arrived! Alisha surely wouldn't take her back to the shelter now. When Alisha got out, Salem jumped onto the back seat to peek out of the window after her, stomach still lurching. There were cars. A shop? Was Alisha getting food?

Maybe. Definitely, she could smell food. But now there was also an awful smell of petrol. The vile taste of fuel in the air pushed her over the edge.

Vomiting was never pleasant, but relief always followed. There was also the relief of having arrived at Alisha's destination, Salem not realising what a gas station was or that humans might stop for petrol on long journeys. Unsurprisingly therefore, when Alisha came back from the gas station Salem was sitting on the driver's seat, looking up at her expectantly. When she spotted the stowaway purrloin in her car, she reacted only with a raised eyebrow. Salem had expected a yelp of surprise, at least.

"So," she said, grinning as she did. "I guess you wanted to come with me after all. Hey, I won't tell Jamie you're with me if you don't."

She winked at Salem, and Salem winked back, although since she couldn't do the little cheek motion or tongue click she was really only blinking with one eye. It made Alisha smile, though, so it was good enough.

Alisha took a minute to clean up Salem's mess with minimal grumbling, before taking the driver's seat again. As Salem waited from her spot in the passenger seat, her previous concern with whether Alisha would take her back to Jamie was succeeded by a concern with whether she could go back to Jamie. She hadn't wanted to. She still didn't. But she still felt uneasy at the thought that she'd already travelled too far to go back.

The journey from that point on was gentler on Salem. Alisha drove more carefully knowing she had a pokémon riding shotgun, and the passenger seat let Salem watch the scenery go by. Salem spent a lot of time with her front paws up on the dashboard, wide-eyed at the speed of passing trees, signs, vehicles. From time to time she would spot a pokémon in a passing car looking at her and barking, or a wild one travelling on foot beside the road.

Alisha spoke up soon after Salem had her chance to rest.

"So, kitten. You must have really wanted to try something new, huh?"

Keeping her eyes on the road meant Alisha couldn't look round at Salem to read her pokésign. Instead of signing, Salem miaowed, trying to communicate her desperation and hopes and fears all in one sound.

"That bad, huh?"

Oh! This human was _smart_. This was good!

"Well, you sure look banged up, I have to say. You must have been out on the street a while, I'm guessing. That's a yes? Okay, well, you're not hard to figure out, then. You didn't get on so well with your human, you didn't get on okay as a stray, and you didn't feel happy at the shelter either. Here's the thing. I've got another way for you. If you want it."

Alisha told Salem about the future that she'd offered the other shelter pokémon, rephrasing things as she went if Salem had any trouble following the explanation. Salem listened attentively, mewing in acknowledgement with each promise. The deal was this: Salem was being offered a new home, along with other pokémon ill-suited to their previous lives. She would be asked to work hard in return, maybe fight battles if she could do that, and she couldn't turn back once she'd made her choice. What's more, there was another condition, one which Salem thought was a miracle, not a sacrifice, once she was sure she'd understood. Alisha explained it carefully, building up to the reveal like a hunter stalking quarry.

"I'm sure you want to evolve, one day, Salem."

She gave an affirmative miaow.

"Maybe you've dreamed about it. Changing who you are so completely. Permanently. It must seem terribly exciting."

It was exciting. Even scary. But it was something she had long aspired to, originally to be stronger on a journey with Laura, but lately just so she could be less vulnerable. To fight other pokémon for resources. Maybe even humans.

"Humans aren't much like pokémon. Humans don't have your strength, and humans don't evolve. There's no bright light when humans become adults. They change only with age, which is a slow and gradual process that nobody can avoid. You've spent your whole life expecting that bright light. Maybe longing for it. Perhaps you've longed to be human, too."

Salem miaowed, quieter this time. That was truer than Alisha could know.

"It's not impossible, you know."

Alisha let the thought sink in for a few breaths. It was a strange thought. Perhaps Alisha was only being figurative. Humans did that all the time, Salem had learnt. They were on a long stretch of road now, with many other cars. Salem found herself trying to follow the green blur of roadside trees, which whipped past her field of vision faster than was comfortable for her neck to track. It occurred to her that she had finally left Laura's city for the first time, and it hadn't been together. How would the world be different now?

"I knew a zorua once," Alisha continued at last. "A pokémon very much like you, Salem. She liked to talk, even though signing is difficult, and people don't pay attention, and she knew she couldn't ever think the way humans think. She just kept wishing she could. Sound familiar?"

It did. As familiar as hunger, as familiar as the moon.

"She had hope, though. She knew that when she evolved, she'd become a zoroark, and stand on two legs, the better to sign. Of course, even that wouldn't be perfect. But she'd got this idea that if she wanted it badly enough, she could evolve into a human instead. If she just imagined it hard enough when the time came, she'd be engulfed in bright light, and in a flash have not only hands and fingers but a person's voice, so she could talk to her human friends properly for the first time. She thought about it all the time. Have you ever had those kind of thoughts, Salem?"

A soft rumbling showed her admission.

"Well, that zorua got her wish, eventually. That's what we're doing for the pokémon who agree to our offer. We're making them human."

Silence. Then her heartbeat, the sounds of cars and wind and the engine noise all at once. She had to remember to breathe.

"Well, it's a close enough thing, anyway. They're hybrids, to tell the truth. Part human. Part pokémon. They may as well be human as far as I'm concerned. They keep all their abilities and much of their original appearance, but they have the shape of a human, and the mind and voice of one too. That makes them people the same as any human, in my opinion."

Once again, Alisha allowed Salem to digest the idea. The thought fluttered in her stomach like nothing ever had.

"It'll be tough if you agree to it. The actual change itself is pretty distressing to go through and there's no way to turn back if you regret it, but it's a chance to be different, to be better, to have an incredible life. I'd make that choice if I were a pokémon. Would you go for that, Salem?"

She miaowed earnestly, several times for emphasis. Alisha laughed gently, and said she wasn't surprised. All Salem could think of was what Alisha had said — "the voice of a human." She would have a proper voice. A human voice. Alisha didn't say anything else, just turned the music up on the radio and left Salem to her thoughts. Many breaths later, when the sky was growing darker, and the car had travelled countless spans, Salem thought of the questions, "why would you do this for me?" and "are there many others who have done this?" and "how is this possible?" These were questions she didn't know how to ask. Alisha answered one for her at least.

"It's a lot like evolution, just slower. Someone found a way to trick a pokémon's body so that instead of evolving normally, it becomes part-human. I don't understand how it works any more than you do, but it works. It does take several exhausting days and growing to ten times your body weight is a huge strain, so we'll just make sure you're asleep for as much of it as possible and you'll just wake up afterwards with a new body. You might not even remember any of it, if you're lucky."

Salem already felt lucky. Lucky enough to make up for all her months of pained survival, every scratch and bruise she'd sustained in fights over food and shelter, even the loss of Laura's devotion. She would do anything, anything at all for this.

Alisha tried to talk a few times later in the trip, but Salem found her attention sliding off anything that Alisha said. It was too ordinary — the weather, what their destination was like, how tired she was — nothing about the shock that was her chance to become human. So instead of speaking to a silent Salem, Alisha sang along to the radio. Salem didn't recognise it, and music was mostly just an arrangement of sounds to her, but Alisha was singing with enthusiasm, and Salem enjoyed hearing that.

Later, she slept shallowly on the passenger seat as they sped along the motorway, comfortable in the evening darkness. The winter sun had died before they had even reached their destination.

Alisha woke Salem from dreamless sleep with a gentle nudge, so she stirred, got to her feet and put her paws up on the dashboard. The car pulled in through a security gate and into a large bare-earth car park, past which she saw a broad, squat building complex, surrounded by vehicles and ringed by a network of dirt roads. Further away, fences secured the area. She could have scaled them easily if not for the spooled barbs at their tops. Beyond the complex and to every side, deciduous trees sprawled across a craggy landscape for a great distance, such as Salem had only ever seen in her imagination or on Laura's television programs. These forests felt both dreamlike and inviting to her.

Alisha got out, and retrieved her things from the back seat. Salem caught the unique scent of new pokéballs from her bags. Would pokéballs still work on her after she evolved into a human? Or a "hybrid." That was the word Alisha had used. Salem didn't know that word, but she could infer the meaning. She made an experimental series of swipes with her paw, trying to combine her signs for 'pokémon' and 'human.' Clawing motions for [POKÉMON.] Tapping her head for [PERSON.] One paw at her temple then slashing downward; [HUMAN-POKÉMON.] That would be her, soon. Her heart and lungs accelerated in anticipation.

"You coming, Salem?"

She chirruped her reply, and bounded up to Alisha, who led her inside one of the buildings. Part of her wanted to know what was in the other buildings and if she'd get a chance to explore them. And the forest, for that matter! Only part of her, though. Almost all of her was fixated on what was about to happen. That is, if she didn't have to wait long. Would she have to?

They entered through double doors, and Salem scented tracked-in soil and mud, cleaning products, dozens of separate humans, and the tang of new pine furniture. Something else, too. That same peculiar smell she had detected from Alisha. She half-guessed, half-hoped that it was the smell of hybrids. Alisha waved to another human behind a desk, who waved back idly from behind a computer monitor.

As the two humans discussed things Salem didn't know about in words she didn't understand, she looked about the room, studying it. She wanted to at least explore if she had to wait to 'evolve'. There wasn't much to catch her eye, however, so she stared at the doors that led to the rest of the building, waiting for them to open. She'd been sat still practically the whole day and now her chest was thumping and her breathing was rapid; she would shoot off the first chance she got.

"...called Salem, she was at the shelter too…"

Just as Salem turned her attention back to the discussion, a door swung open for a human coming out, and Salem took the opportunity to rush past their feet and into the corridor beyond. She was grateful to see that several rooms along the length of it had windows for her to look into. She leapt up to each of them in turn, hoping to catch sight of a pokémon who'd become human or even the way in which they were transformed.

She had no luck with the two nearest rooms. The first was occupied by a dozen or so human staff, working at computers and therefore completely mysterious to Salem. The other was unlit and not in use, but she noted stacks and stacks of crates and boxes inside. When she scrambled to perch on the third window's lip, however, she could see that leaning against the inside wall with their back to the window was a figure with a mane of sand and charcoal unlike any human hair, yet belonging to a fully clothed humanoid nonetheless. They must have heard her jumping up and scrabbling for purchase, because they turned around to look at her, and for scarcely a breath-span, Salem could see red eyes, a protruding charcoal horn, and sandy fur. Not skin. Fur. A hybrid-!

"Salem!"

She lost her grip on her perch and landed heavily on her paws. Alisha towered over her, hands on hips, but she was smiling, not frowning. Salem signed a small apology to Alisha and tried to get her excitement across with frantic mews and gestures.

"Hey, I'm excited too, but you can't go charging round the place unsupervised, and it's late already. We gotta get some rest. Don't worry, I literally just put you down first on the waiting list, just because you were such a sweetheart today. You'll get your chance tomorrow, okay?"

Tomorrow-! If only tomorrow could be now! But there was no hurrying the sun and moon. Salem would have to wait after all. Even the thought of a single night's wait was painful!

She miaowed loudly, and signed [HUMAN-POKÉMON! FOUND!], but Alisha didn't get the message, and lead her elsewhere in the facility. Alisha had a room of her own, and invited Salem to spend the night there. Naturally, she accepted — although, what else could she have done? It turned out Alisha didn't have proper packaged food manufactured for pokémon consumption, but she did have the contents of half a tuna sandwich and some suitable treats. Good enough. Salem accepted, and although it took her some time to calm down, she eventually had the most restful sleep she'd managed in many moons, curled up on the corner of Alisha's bed.

In her dreams, she was human. She stood on two legs and her paws were hands. She was walking in a forest that went on forever, when she saw her own face in a clear pool of water.

She looked something like her normal self, and something like Alisha, and something like the hybrid-person she'd spied before. She turned to look at Alisha, standing beside her, and Alisha's face seemed to be a reflection of her own. She smiled, and felt what it was to smile. Alisha smiled back. She opened her mouth to speak-

-and Alisha was stumbling out of bed, seemingly unaware of Salem nearby.

Salem miaowed a gentle but resentful greeting. Then, when she remembered — today! It was today! This was the morning of the day she would become human! — she voiced a chirruping, lively token of her excitement.

"Good to see you, cheeky kitty," mumbled Alisha.

Alisha calling her that wasn't the same as Laura calling her that, but it was still faintly pleasant.

Every breath that Alisha took to wash and dress herself was a breath that Salem spent miaowing, pacing or otherwise fussing. Alisha poked gentle fun at her, called her a silly cat. This reminded her of Laura, and so she stopped agitating so much and tried as hard as she could to be patient. Her patience would be worthwhile. Alisha had a plastic-wrapped bar of something for her breakfast, and when Salem signed [FOOD] she wagged her finger, saying "sorry, kitty, but no solids before the morphing process. Strict rule." So, no food for her, for now. This, too, would be worth it.

Everything would be worth it.

So, were they going to where she would be transformed, immediately? Not quite.

"We have to give you a little checkup first," cautioned Alisha. "It won't take ages, I promise."

Alisha led Salem through the corridors of the facility, and past several human and pokémon staff, but she didn't get another glimpse of any hybrids. Alisha spotted her looking around, guessed why, and asked if she'd like to meet one. Apparently it was normal to offer 'candidate pokémon' (that was her!) the chance to speak to a hybrid before going through the transformation themselves. Salem accepted with eagerness.

They carried on to the clinic for the 'checkup'. Alisha passed Salem over to the staff and went to arrange the meeting she'd promised. True to Alisha's word, the checkup didn't take all day, but to Salem it may as well have lasted a moon. A veterinary nurse looked her over for injuries, illness and the like, and was kind enough to explain what she was doing as she did it, for Salem's benefit.

Her temperature was taken, as was a blood sample (against her loud objections) and her microchip. She didn't realise in that moment what the value of the lost microchip was, being more concerned with the indignity of having her blood taken. No cat would realise the implications of removing such a thing, and nobody would bother giving them an explanation.

Eventually, Salem was pronounced 'in surprisingly healthy condition, considering'. She was given some tablets for nutrient deficiencies, which she swallowed only after an extended squabble, and allowed to continue on her way.

The small lounge where they were to meet a real, actual 'pokémorph' was a cosy place. It had a variety of different chairs, stools and sofas, apparently because comfortable seating standards were different between hybrids. There was a water cooler, a little tray of treats (which interested Salem somewhat) and a small squeeze-toy filled with catnip (which interested her enormously). This was surely all in the pursuit of her comfort! Salem went for the treats, only to be shooed away by Alisha. No solids!

While Salem played with the catnip toy, Alisha sprawled herself out on a sofa, lying on it sideways with one leg over the arm and the other hanging over the side. "I let the staff know I'd like to let you meet Church. He's our resident 'retired' morph, we like him to say hello to new candidates and tell them about what they're signing on for before they take the plunge."

[WHAT?]

"Oh, uh, Church is a hybrid. A pokémon-made-human. His job is to meet pokémon like you, so you know what it's like."

[THANK-YOU.]

"No problem, kitten."

They didn't have to wait long for Church to knock on the door — Salem had yet to tear open the chew toy. The arrival of a [HUMAN-POKÉMON!] was far more important than catnip, however, so she sat straight up and batted the toy away, curling her tail around her paws neatly. Alisha jumped to her feet to get the door for the incoming guest, holding it open as he entered. He moved slowly, deliberately, as if each step was a choice carefully made. Alisha helped him into an armchair.

He struck an imposing figure, at first glance. He was tall, broad, and his head was crowned with enormous black horns, but as Salem watched his tree-trunk limbs move, she noticed a hesitance in his steps. Everything about Church was striking, but nothing so much as his being absolutely covered in fur. Salem had imagined hybrids to look like humans in thick coats, in her naivety, but his off-white and woolly fur thickly obscured all skin. It was especially startling to see fur where human skin would be most visible, around his neck and face. His facial fur was accented by dark markings around his eyes as if he were wearing eyeshadow or a bandit's mask, Salem preferring to think of it as the latter.

"It's okay, Salem," Alisha was saying, wrongly assuming that Salem was alarmed rather than transfixed. "He's a big teddy bear. You can come over, come say hi."

She did, creeping up to him like she would an unfamiliar human. He leaned down, seeming like nothing so much as a tree bending in the wind as he did so, and reached out a hand for her to sniff. His hands were _hands_ — human hands! They were furred hands, hands where the middle two fingers had the receded remnants of cloven hooves, but hands all the same. His scent was more like plants and earth than anything. Not as if he'd been rolling in a field, but as if he had been made from a grassy hill dug into the shape of a person and brought to life. He had a short mane of what Salem was sure was some kind of scrub grass, which smelled not entirely unlike a freshly mowed lawn.

As she continued to scent him, taking in the familiar and the strange all at once, he bent down to sniff her in return. With each intake and exhalation of air he made a kind of blowing, roaring snort, like any number of large mammals on the nature documentaries Laura used to watch. Salem at last detected a signature smell both like and unlike human scent and the scent of human things — the familiar smells of uncooked vegetables, and of cotton clothing.

At last, she looked up from his outstretched hand and examined Church's appearance. He gazed back, as attentive to her as she was to him. His face had a sloping bridge higher than any human's, and ended in the same sort of soft, leathery black nose as Salem's. Above that high bridge were the roots of those grand, backward-curving horns that looked like nothing so much as a pair of bike handles. Church wore a pair of cargo shorts, which revealed his legs as still being hoofed and bent like a normal gogoat's, changing only enough to support his humanoid frame and not to become perfectly human. An orange sleeveless jacket was open to bare his torso and grassy mane; it was bizarre to see something so human framing something so wild.

Seen as a whole, Salem could barely register Church as a real creature. He was like a forest beast out of a children's book, or something from an urban myth, yet his clothes were the sort of thing Laura's father would wear in the garden on a summer's day. If she focused on the jacket, he felt human. If she focused on the horns, he became a pokémon. Hands; human. Hooves; pokémon. It was hard to reconcile the conflicting aspects of his appearance so that she could recognise him as somehow both, but neither. Only his scent seemed perfectly 'both', between human and pokémon. She signed her word for 'hybrid': [HUMAN-POKÉMON.]

To her surprise, he signed [human-pokémon] back to her, more fluidly than her of course but nevertheless using the same approximate gestures. He repeated the gesture experimentally, and again, until he had comfortably mastered it with a flair Salem could only dream of.

[I am a human-pokémon, yes. Hello, little one. I am-] he signed, and then he used one she didn't recognise, placing his hands flat together as if in prayer. 'Church', she guessed. [It is my pleasure to meet you. I hope that you are well, and comfortable in this place.]

His pokésign was easily the best Salem had seen in her life. Not the throh from the day before, not Laura, nobody had the confident and perfect signing that this gogoat hybrid could manage. Salem missed a breath, stunned.

Alisha replied for her. "Church, this is Salem. She's a purrloin who snuck into my car while I wasn't looking, I guess because she was desperate to come with me rather than get adopted out. Could you tell her a little bit about what happened to you?"

"Yes," said Church. His voice was deeper than any human's and yet he sounded perfectly human to Salem. "I would be glad to, Alisha. Salem, is it? Welcome, Salem."

Oh, how Salem wanted that voice for herself. Any voice at all, so long as she could speak her name.

Church told Salem who he was. He was once a riding mount for a human named Shannon Church and her companion for many years. He'd had another name back then. She had died as people often do, of an illness he had not understood, leaving him in the care of her relatives. Where Shannon had understood him perfectly, now he struggled to be heard. Nothing was the same. He had spent too long being that woman's singular partner. Eventually Shannon's brother let Church leave for a pokémon sanctuary. He did not belong there either, without purpose as he was. One day, a human very much like Alisha turned up. They made him an offer. He took it.

"It was hard, Salem. Understand this. I chose to become what I am because I could no longer be what I was. I took an entire moon to consider my choice, and it took longer for my body to change. It was gradual, and it was exhausting. Even painful. Do you understand this, little cat?"

[YES,] she replied at once.

Church stroked his chin with a massive hand. "Be careful, Salem. I believe you should take as much time as I did to be sure of what you want."

Salem was already sure. And as best as she could, she said so.

[I'M HUMAN-POKÉMON. YES, SOON. I AM.]

The effort was tremendous, but Church seemed to comprehend perfectly.

"Alright, Salem. You seem very sure of yourself. I hope you will be as comfortable with your new body and mind as I have become with mine. It was nice to meet you. I trust that when we meet again you will tell me about yourself. Alisha- I am tired now. Please."

Alisha thanked Church and helped him to his feet. Once she'd let him through the door, she gestured to Salem, who jumped down from her spot to follow her elsewhere.

"You ready now, kitten? All decided?"

[YES!]

She signed so forcefully that she almost tripped herself in doing so. Alisha laughed to herself, and lead the way.

Their destination was a white-tiled room with metal equipment and furnishings. Several beds, though not nearly as plush as the beds Salem was used to. A row of empty glass cylinders reaching from the floor to the ceiling. A small collection of humans and a short pink-and-cream pokémon following the instructions of another human, whom Alisha went to speak to. Salem did her best to listen attentively to the conversation — this was the conversation preceding the most exciting and singular event of her life! — but she only knew a tiny portion of the words being used. Still, she tried to memorise the sounds used, hoping to understand them later, as a hybrid.

There was some bickering between Alisha and the others, and Salem caught her own name. There was gesturing, and raising of voices, and "no, no, absolutely no." Her breath died in her lungs as she feared that she might be being turned down for this, she would never be human at all, that they might send her back, send her home! But they did not send her away, even though Alisha seemed to have lost the argument. Instead, Alisha lifted her onto a bed and patted her head gently. Her breath returned with a purr.

"Looks like you get to do this the old fashioned way," Alisha told her. That didn't mean anything to her, but Alisha spoke so gently and with such confidence, that the fluttering of her heart ebbed at once.

Another human brought a sheaf of papers and a pen. This was what Jamie had had Alisha do — to give a 'signature.' She and the white-coated woman with her explained various things to Salem, carefully, but with growing impatience on the part of the stranger. Alisha admonished her more than once for this. Salem listened carefully as she was told about what was to happen. Some she already knew from Alisha or Church, and some she couldn't understand, but there was something new — it was going to hurt. First when they pierced her skin to make her evolve, and then for days afterwards as her body changed. It would be slow. She would struggle to survive. A machine would even have to do her breathing for her.

[YOU - HELP?] she signed, hoping Alisha would understand.

"I'll be here the whole time, Salem. I'll do anything to make sure you make it through, okay?"

Okay. That was okay.

Salem had already struggled to survive for moons before now. If she could be human at the end of this new struggle, if Alisha would stay by her side as she gradually evolved — she would do it. When she thought about the choice, she found she'd already made it long ago, before she knew she had a choice to make.

Salem miaowed her assent and soon enough, Alisha presented Salem with a small black pad. Alisha held her paw to it, and her pads came away sticky and damp.

"Put your paw to this paper when you're ready, kitten," said Alisha. "That proves you understand what you're about to do as best as we can explain to you. It gives us permission to change you."

She didn't hesitate. Her paw pressed the paper firmly enough to crease, and the print smudged a little as she pulled away. The woman she didn't know took a wet wipe and cleaned her paw pad. It was unpleasant, but she wanted the ink gone and so she tolerated the sensation.

"Sorry about this," she caught Alisha saying. Sorry for what? But she trusted Alisha. She didn't question this.

"This might sting a little," said the other woman.

The humans who were still strangers to her prepared a tray of small devices. She recognised the shape from visits to the pokémon centre. These objects were 'injections.' Was that the method? One injection and she would evolve? Not quite, it turned out. One of the humans — a man smelling only of disinfectant and not of his history or his life — took a trio of syringes and brought them to her side.

Alisha's voice from behind him: "Try to relax, Salem."

She did, even as this human took a buzzing razor and shaved away a patch of fur on her foreleg, held her paw firmly, and applied a syringe to her vein. She knew she was being given her dream, but still she growled through her clenched jaw at the intrusion. It only hurt as much as a warning nip from another cat, but it was all she could do not to tug away. She wouldn't spoil this. She wanted this. She dug her claws into the bed sheet so that she wouldn't scratch the man in a panic. He did this again with the other two injections with Salem mewling and growling the whole time, but by the time he'd found a vein for the second, she was already starting to feel different. Not different in any 'human' or unfamiliar way, but in the all too familiar sensations of nausea, thirst, and desperation to sleep.

She looked around for Alisha, and tried to sign for water, but she couldn't raise her paw to her mouth. She licked her lips in vague distress. Alisha's eyes were somewhere else. Salem turned to see what she was looking at: the other human hooking something into her skin. Not an injection this time, but something else — a transparent, flexible tube, through which ran a pale, translucent fluid. She wanted to make a miaow, just a small one, but the thought never made it from her brain to her lungs. Her mouth opened wide, but Salem could not make a sound as she fell into oblivion.

This was the moment when her story as a cat ended. The moment when the story of Salem the hybrid began.

Salem's last thought as a purrloin was not fear, but hope.

She hoped that when she woke up, she could thank Alisha with real words.


	6. Interlude I - SHP

AN: At the time of uploading, I have just edited the prelude and first chapter. An edited version of Chapter Four will be uploaded within 24 hours of this update. Thank you.

* * *

 **Interlude I**

 **SHP**

[OPEN ENTRY #C-122F]

[L1 ACCESS GRANTED]

[WARNING] — The contents of this article are restricted to personnel with L2-SHP clearance or equivalent.

 **Perihelion Database**

 **Entry #C-122F**

 **"Species Hybridisation Protocol"**

This article describes Species Hybridisation Protocol in general terms. See sub-entry #C-122F-a for more information on the SHP development program from an administrative perspective and sub-entry #C-122F-b for further procedural detail from a medical and scientific perspective.

 **Overview:**

SHP is predefined procedural methodology for the use of multiple technologies in the fields of genetic engineering, medicine, and pokémon bio-energy to alter the genotype, morphology and anatomy of a pokémon so as to closely resemble that of a human being. In other words, it is a process meant to turn pokémon into near-human beings. The requisite technologies are Perihelion patents in perpetuity, but the process itself is confidential, as the existence of pokémon-human hybrids (colloquially known as pokémorphs or morphs) remains restricted information. SHP has several informal names among personnel, most commonly 'morphing.'

 **Ethics:**

The SHP necessarily cannot undergo a traditional public ethical review by a neutral organisation, due to the sensitive nature of the program. However, Perihelion retains a strong commitment to medical ethics, and so a private ethical review has been conducted as at 2015/11/30. The review was carried out by representatives of several accredited institutional review boards for human and pokémon experimentation in Europe and North America, those representatives having signed strict NDAs beforehand. The representatives voted in favour of approving SHP research and implementation four votes to three. Operative Alisha Renadier was instrumental in securing the winning vote, having demonstrated to the representatives the high standard of care provided for hybrid subjects.

 **Methodology:**

The principle underpinning SHP is the possibility of permanently introducing human genetic material to the genome of a pokémon subject, in such a way as to stimulate the evolutionary mechanism of its bio-energy. This stimulation, resembling that induced by 'evolutionary stones' and similar devices, causes the subject to adopt a hybrid physical form. This can be done in several ways, only a few of which are practical. For more information on the scientific principles of SHP, see Further Reading below.

 **Generation I:**

The first successful SHP procedures in 2006 were performed on embryonic subjects sustained in artificial wombs until birth. Some procedures used living surrogates to host the subjects, but this was not found to be practical. The series of experimental trials and procedures using this method, along with all subjects created as a result, are collectively known as G1. G1 hybrids commonly acquired various medical disorders arising from the difficulty in undergoing the morphing process while still in prenatal development. The G1 process was also prohibitively expensive. For these reasons, the G1 protocol has been discontinued. Although G1 SHP has the reputation of being the first successful method of creating pokémon-human hybrids, the 'ur-hybrid' is believed to have been created by a covert research team in the Izu Archipelago.

[ATTACHED IMAGE " " NOT DISPLAYED]

[IMAGE CAPTION: "A foetal G1 subject inside an artificial womb, shown after seven months of gestation."]

 **Generation II:**

Current SHP procedures are performed on living, developmentally mature pokémon using new techniques in genome editing, the most important of which is the use of synthetic retroviruses. The retroviral agent, classified as HIRA, introduces human genes to every cell in a subject's body, then activates those genes and self-terminates on introduction of a trigger compound injected subsequently. G2 subjects have a high survival rate, rarely acquire medical complications, and experience heightened neuroplasticity for some time after the procedure. The latter effect is of significant utility in allowing new subjects to acquire language and skills at an accelerated rate for as long as six months after the procedure. The G2 process is also dramatically more economical than G1, but still has some drawbacks, particularly the difficulty in acquiring suitable pokémon subjects and the need for intensive life support while they undergo the physical transformation. Additionally, there are many pokémon species unable to undergo the G2 procedure.

[ATTACHED IMAGE " " NOT DISPLAYED]

[IMAGE CAPTION: "A mature G2 subject nearing procedural completion, suspended in a life support tank."]

 **Use on Humans:**

No 'reverse' variant of SHP has proven successful on human trial subjects at this time. No further trials are planned.

 **Further Research:**

Lab teams in Perihelion morphing facilities are currently directed to develop improved standards for the care and training of G2 pokémorphs, and to submit proposals for a third generation protocol which places less strain on a subject's body. There are several promising avenues for development of 'G3' at this time, chief among which is the potential use of depleted evolutionary stones as a vehicle for gene delivery.

 **Other Applications:**

The equipment and technical knowledge developed through the SHP program could theoretically be used to treat genetic disease, increase human longevity, and create modified organisms other than pokémorphs, such as highly productive, nutritious and disease-resistant crops. These applications are a secondary priority at this time.

 **Further Reading:**

See entries for [pokémorphs, genome editing, life support, infinite energy, HIRA, Mewtwo, Izu Group, Perihelion Concordat.]

[CLOSE ENTRY]


	7. Five - Second Nascence

AN: Here we go. This chapter's an important one. Illustrative art for this entry can be found on Bulbagarden/Serebii/Archive Of Our Own under the same title.

I'm having a hard time offline of late, and reviews — even very short ones! — would really help me feel like my efforts to update this story in a timely fashion were well-spent. Thank you, and enjoy.

* * *

 **Five**

 **Second Nascence**

It felt like dying.

She couldn't breathe. There was no air. Her lungs strained — no air. She choked and gagged on something, something stuck in her throat. Her lungs strained. Her chest heaved. Nothing.

There was no air. Yet she did not die.

She tried to move, to clutch at her throat. Her forelegs were so tired she could hardly feel them. Her limbs moved weakly, so weakly, as if through water. There was water, she was in water. Submerged. She was underwater!

She tried to flail, to swim, but her limbs protested every command. Her eyes were shut; she could be asleep. No. She was not asleep. She opened her eyes, it stung, it hurt, but there — there was the room, through the faint glass and the green water and the dim light.

She was in the tank.

She kept forgetting she was in the tank.

Each time Salem woke from sleep — if it was sleep at all, for her dreams felt like memories and when she woke it felt like a dream — it got a little easier to remember she was in the tank. It began with choking, then struggling, then opening her eyes. She always realised where she was when she saw the ward, made green in hue by the liquid in the tank. She was looking down at the room as if from a height, so she knew that she could not be standing on the floor. She must be suspended in the tank, like always.

This time she was just barely lucid enough to notice an alien intrusion in her flesh. A tube from above pierced her chest. Another pierced her neck. More on either side of her head connected to the mask over her mouth. There could be more where she couldn't see. She was suspended by them, held in place by them, held in this half-dream, half-death. She pawed weakly at one of the cables and felt it tug inside her. She would never have the strength to remove it. Maybe that was for the best. Maybe the cables were remaking her.

She hadn't expected to wake at all while she was being remade. This wasn't right. Something could be wrong with the tank, with the transformation. Something could be wrong with her. This was wrong. But thinking about it got harder and harder, and soon she fell back into the darkness once again.

Salem drifted in and out of unconsciousness, her eyes never open for long, her mind never able to cling to more than a droplet or two of memory from her dreams or her last days as herself. She dreamed of human faces and her own, of watching herself from behind and seeing her body standing on two legs; of needles; of being held; of being held tightly, too tightly; of blood and hunger and cold. Of fighting. Of losing.

When she woke to the room, she would look around for someone she knew. A couple times, she thought she could perceive Alisha, as a momentary hazy glimpse past the water and the tank, or as a faint familiar scent. But that was surely an illusion. She could smell nothing but the dead scent of rubber, the smell of the mask fitted to her muzzle. Still, she kept looking for Alisha's face past the tank glass.

Her reality was fleeting. Her eyes lied to her. Now she was in the bed from before, but a different room. There were curtains around her. Different containers feeding fluids into her body. Different items applied to to her body. Different covers over her body. She understood none of it. Now she was in the tank again, and there were wires in her skin that felt cold, the way her pads felt on icy pavement. More numb than truly cold. The wires went up overhead and she could vaguely make out glass canisters of liquid fixed to the top of the tank.

She was changing. It was hard to perceive, to concentrate, but she could tell. It was too clear even through the clouds in her mind. She could feel her body aching, she could see it stretching out below her, longer than could be true. She could feel sensations unfamiliar and strange — her tongue resting differently in her mouth, impossible to feel comfortable with. Different muscles twitching; different extremities itching. Even her heart was different. The beat against her ribs was slow and powerful, like the heavy thumping of human footsteps. A human heartbeat. She could hear her heartbeat in her head, slower than could be right. She'd known she would change, but she'd thought of documentaries, of evolution in normal pokémon, of instant growth and light. This wasn't evolution. It was slow, human change. Like ageing. Like the growth of trees.

Once, she woke up and tried to stretch, and she waved her paw in front of her face as she did. Her foreleg — her arm, it would be her arm — burned as she held her paw up, but she held it there all the same, to see the way her digits were lengthening. She tried to flex them, and they cramped up, making her whimper — a whimper that sounded strangely in her head, a whimper that felt odd as it formed in her throat. It never arrived at her ears past the mask and the fluid, instead she heard it from inside her own skull.

Still she saw her paws nonetheless; pads pulled apart from each other and joints stretched out too far. They were neither paws nor hands now. They were ugly, useless, halfway things. Too stubby and crude to grasp with, but elongated enough that they would be hard to walk on. She imagined her paws being stuck like this; useless for all but the most crude pokésign. She dared not move them too much. It might stop them growing.

She tried to tell how long she'd been this way. Days? Moons? Seasons? Hard to guess — impossible to know. There were only human lights — no windows, no way to measure the suns and moons. As her ordeal went on, she tried to track time by remembering details: what level the fluid canisters were at, how many plasters she wore on her arm and where, how far below her body her hind-paws — her feet — were. She tried to count how many times these details changed, and always lost cost after three or four.

It never got easier to focus, to stay awake, or to control her body, but it did get easier to think. Not easy, but possible to do without her thoughts bleeding out of her head. The drowsiness was less raw, more like an irritating scab than a fresh cut. First, it was just that her thoughts were clearer. Then, she could recall details more readily. At last, she was certain, the drip that fed into her arm had been changed five times since she started counting, half as many times as the plaster where the tube that bit her arm had been changed. She was certain too that she'd never recalled so many distinct moments at once. It was as if she'd been half asleep her entire life, and only now was she truly lucid.

Remembering several things at once and comparing them was thrilling enough, even through the continual panic of not breathing, not standing, not breathing. Even had she been breathing, it would have been breathtaking to think about something someone had said and at the same time consider why or how they had said it. At least, without the memory streaming out of her brain like water off her paw. More so to be able to think about both how she had felt, and why she felt that way. The difference between remembering and understanding… It was the difference between merely drinking water, and actually tasting it as you drank. For the first time, she could taste her thoughts. For the first time, she could clearly ask herself, _"did I have to leave Laura? Was that the right thing to do? What if I hadn't done it?"_ That was not thrilling. It was terrifying. It was miserable.

She could not escape the dark panic that came with those thoughts while conscious. So, she sought sleep again, and despite the cold bruise flowering in her chest, and the burning of her skin and eyes, she found it. With sleep came an escape from these new and jagged thoughts. Her dreams changed too. Now she dreamed of speaking English to Alisha, of full and plentiful sentences spilling out of her mouth like water from a tap, on and off at will. She couldn't make sense of what she was saying, though, and when she tried to pay attention to the way her mouth and tongue were moving to produce the words, the dream wavered and she was pulled out of it. She stopped trying to listen to her own voice, and willed the dream to continue. So long as she did not concentrate, she kept speaking. She would speak forever.

She dreamed of speaking to Laura, but the words were trapped in her throat, and she choked on them, unable to make a sound. She dreamed of speaking to Mienshao, to the glameow tom, to the throh and the chatot. Of saying something to Church or another morph. These were good dreams. A zoroark hybrid, red mouth grinning and full of teeth, replied to her, saying "well, soft cat, Salem, good well, all and happy." The words swam in her ears, meaningless but good, so good, and so comforting.

When she woke next, it was dimly lit in the ward, and a torrent of thoughts hit her with _"is my body any different today"_ and _"where's alisha is she here"_ and _"jamie lied to me why would he do that"_ and _"i'm going to live like this for the rest of my life"_ and _"can i still become a liepard"_ and _"i have never been this tired."_ Not just feelings or desires or half-thoughts, but full, clear thoughts. A half dozen at once. Now a dozen. Painful and scary and beautiful. She had never spoken a word of English and yet somehow she could hear her own voice in her own head, sounding out her thoughts.

The green-soaked shadow of a human moved past the tank, unseeing.

Her body ached in every possible place: in her stomach and her limbs and her head and her pads and her eyes. Even her fur seemed to be hurting. Once she'd paid attention to the cacophony of hurt, the blunt pain behind her eyes was the worst of them. Still, she made herself lift her forepaw in front of her face, just to examine it one more time, to examine it as was now her habit whenever she was awake.

Five distinct digits, long and dexterous and complete. A hand. A more or less human hand — albeit still covered in dark fur, still with firm pads, and still tipped with curved retractable claws. A hand all the same. One that could do everything a human hand could. A hand that could do anything at all.

She curled her fingers into a fist, and squeezed. Her claws extended, and dug into her palm, but it felt more wonderful than painful. Tiny swirls of dark blood emptied from the punctures she'd left. She tried to flatten out her hand, then to waggle her fingers individually. The experimental flexing ached awfully, but the satisfaction overwhelmed the discomfort. Nothing had ever been so satisfying. Not a meal, not a warm bed, not a victory. This was the only moment that mattered.

These were her hands. Her _hands_. Hers.

Salem brought her other hand above her head, and the sudden effort made her pass out again. When she came to, the lighting was no different and she was still alone. She attempted a ginger, awkward stretch, and though her body complained in a chorus of aching bones and sore muscles, she felt faintly better for it. Simply floating where she was and listening to her body did not tell her much about the changes she'd endured. All that she could be sure of besides the hands was her new size and proportions. Her size! She filled the tank. She could never fit on a pillow now. Or fit into cupboards. Or be held tight. But perhaps she could do other things. Maybe even better things.

Salem waggled her hind-paws in the same way as her hands, and to her vague surprise, they felt much the same as they always had. She tried flicking her tail, and found that it was still very much there, hanging weightlessly in the tank fluid. That was a relief. It would have been difficult to accept the loss of her tail. At least her limbs still belonged to her.

Her investigation continued, and for the first time it made sense why Laura had always made lists of things. She checked off items on an imaginary list as she tested each body part. She began to explore with her hands, starting with her face. There was fur, still, but the shape of her head was altered. Oh, she still had the same nose, it seemed, and she discovered her ears where they'd always been, but the bones… the structure of her skull was new. New brain, new head to keep it in.

A new brain. She would think differently now. Be different. A different person. That could mean anything. Now her new brain was screaming at her with thoughts and memories and sensory input and fear and pain and tiredness and everything, everything, everything all at once without letting up. She tried to gasp, and the gasp died in her chest. She couldn't bear to think about her own thoughts, not yet. Not now.

She couldn't gasp, not yet. The tube that breathed for her also muted her. But gasping reminded her — she had been promised a voice. Even with her tongue pressed down by the tube, she could move it as if she were trying to speak. She put a hand to her throat and tried to feel it vibrate as she mimicked human noises in the complete silence of the tank. She heard her own hums and whines in her skull, like before, and she ached with yearning even as her throat ached with effort.

Every part of her body that she touched ached in response, from her neck to her abdomen. Her gut churned when she pressed into it. Her muscles cramped as she touched them. She felt as tender as if her entire body was nothing but a person-shaped wound. But the important part wasn't feeling like one enormous wound. It was being shaped like a person.

Even in pain and exhaustion as she was, she wanted to yowl joyously, to run and jump and climb, to roll about and rumble thunderously. The weariness rose to match her joy, and she felt so tired that it hurt. The emotions, the mental fog, the bodily pains, all of it was too much. This was too much, and she should be dreaming. She could still be dreaming even now, but for her newfound and unstoppable unyielding unrelenting ability to think and perceive and remember all at once. Her eyes hurt from an unfamiliar pressure and her face contorted involuntarily as for the first time in her life, she managed to cry.

She knew what crying was, of course. Laura had sometimes sobbed into Salem's flank after difficult days, but she had never understood it. She understood it now, her chest heaving and her arms closing over on herself as tears welled up in her eyes and dissipated instantly into the hazy green liquid of the morphing tank. Her sobs were silent, but each one hit her bruised frame like a tackle blow. She let them happen, some part of her relishing the new and entirely human experience even as it hurt her.

Eventually, she passed whatever threshold she had for endurance and passed into sleep once again.

There were no more conscious moments in which to think and feel. Only a fleeting mist of faint and tiny memories.

Green shadows outside the tank.

The roar of draining liquid.

"Looking good, no problems here."

Gravity, absent too long and unwelcome to return.

"There we go. It's okay. It's okay, kitten."

Her lungs alive once more as they should be.

"Salem? Salem, can you hear me?"

Her tongue finally feeling at ease in her mouth.

"I hear you."


	8. Six - Life in Full Colour

Sorry for the wait to anyone following this! I haven't updated for a while because I took up a job at a software startup for several months that had me working late and skipping breaks all while making giant commutes. It really sapped my time and energy. I'm unemployed again now for the sake of my mental health and looking for something part-time and local that will keep my bills paid while allowing me time to write.

Here follows the long-awaited next chapter; thanks for reading.

* * *

 **Six**

 **Life in Full Colour**

"I hear you."

It came out as indistinguishable vowels, a messy and useless noise. That wasn't right. Was she not trying hard enough? She tried again — a strangled yowl. Her throat burned both from hot, angry shame and from the dry air rushing into her aching lungs.

Her head hurt. No — everything hurt.

She opened her eyes. Blinked against the bright — Not brightness. Colours?

The world was different now. New colours. Bright colours. Her eyes swivelled in her head, jolting from one alien hue to another. Now that shirt; now that hair. Colours she had never seen. Never could have imagined. To see many of them, all at once — too much to take. She didn't even face towards them, her eyes just raced — she was dizzy. She felt sick. Too strange. Too new! Too much!

She screwed her eyes shut and made a wailing sound against the visual din.

Alisha was talking, but she couldn't see the meaning of the sounds over the pain and the panic and—

That feeling. That difference. Even with her eyes shut against the world, she could tell.

Her body was not the same.

It felt distant. Stretched-out. Heavy. Impossibly heavy.

She looked down. She saw herself laying before her.

Human sized. Human shaped. Covered in fur, in patterns she knew well. Her body. Yet, not. This was it — the whole point. Her dream.

She stared at it. Tried to move all at once, found she didn't know how. She needed to see. Her head spun as she lifted it. She stared, choked, felt like she was falling.

That was her arm, right there. Human-sized, aching bone-deep, pierced by a tube full of liquid. But certainly her arm. Her arm. Her hand. Right? She raised it. It took more effort than usual. It was too heavy. It felt like someone else's limb. Held still for a moment. Then started to shake with the effort. She tried to splay her fingers, and they twitched in front of her. Useless. Out of her control. She tried yanking out the tube and found she had neither the strength nor the pain tolerance.

What if— Could she get up? What if she couldn't move? She needed to be upright. Now.

She tried to flip onto all fours, something she'd done countless times. Pain; failure. Her body lurched and spasmed; her muscles screamed at her. She gasped, fell back with an audible thump, flinched, cried out in a voice that wasn't her own.

Around her, someone was talking, but she couldn't think, she couldn't listen, she needed to get up—

—Alisha barely had to put her hand on Salem's shoulder and she collapsed down again. Flat on her back, her limbs jerked weakly against the padded railings at the side of her bed. She was exhausted within moments.

"It's gonna be okay, Salem."

Above her was Alisha's face. Muscles relaxed, grinning widely, eyes creased. That was good, right? Salem checked again. She didn't trust her intuition. Yes. Alisha was happy, not distressed. Maybe this was normal. Church must have struggled too! Things were okay, she would get to speak. Soon she would speak. Next to Alisha were the humans from before. How could she know that? Had she really recognised them by sight alone? She'd only seen them once before. Hadn't even got their scent yet. She didn't understand.

Behind the small crowd of humans were clean white walls, the kind of equipment they had in pokémon centres, and several beds much like her own. They were clearly visible at a much greater distance than she was used to. They were more in focus. The contrast between light and shadow sharper. The colours richer. She shrank back from it all. Her vision was _drowning_ her.

"It's okay, you can close your eyes."

No. She was drowning, but so was that feeling of wrongness, of being in a body she didn't understand. She fixed her eyes on Alisha. Wished she could read human faces the way she could read feline body language.

"How are you feeling, kitten?" asked Alisha.

She started to reach to sign, then stopped. She wanted to speak. She forced her mouth into the shapes that she thought were right. What was the thing Alisha had done when she said "feeling?" Teeth against lower lip. Something with her tongue. She didn't know.

"Fee— oh— I—"

The words died in her mouth. She was so close! It hurt to be so close. Even if she had known how to make the sounds, how could she have explained everything she was experiencing? She felt too much. Too many things at once. A storm inside her head! Each sound and scent raised more thoughts and more memories, more than she could cope with, and emotions too, emotions she'd never had, flowing and flooding and breaching every part of her brain with the weight of her feeling, too much, too much!

"Take it steady, Salem. You can stay calm, just keep still and you should start to get used to it."

She gasped and panted, clutching at the bed at if she was about to float away from it. Should? Start to get used to it? Only should? 'It' was her entire existence. She had to 'get used' to it or she— would she feel this way, this awful— today, forever? Overwhelmed. Breathless. For the rest of her life! Her breath caught in her throat. She needed to escape, escape from her own lungs— Please— A way out, please—

"Salem, try to take big breaths. You can do it. One at a time, now. Slowly."

She tried. Breathe in, more, breathe out. Her breath rattled. Inhale, and somehow exhale. Again, again! Slower? — she only knew quick, sharp breaths. Her lungs were so much larger now. She panted to fill them. Strained. Failed.

"It may not feel like it, but you can learn to control your breathing. I promise. Keep trying, Salem."

She breathed as deep as she could, as if it would brace her against the sensory tide, but it was still just a shallow gasp. Fear sunk its teeth into her throat. She wouldn't manage to handle her new eyes, new body, this was a mistake, she couldn't go back. She wasn't adapting, she couldn't adapt. She didn't know how to breathe deeply, to breathe against instinct and habit.

Alisha was still speaking to her, but she'd lost her grip on the words. She wanted to feel nothing. Be nothing. She turned and curled into a ball— but she couldn't. Not quite. Was there something wrong with her legs? Her back wouldn't curve all the way, was it broken? Was she broken? She couldn't pull her legs all the way up. They weren't working. Why?

Yet, to her tearful relief, turning on her side did help. It took pressure off her chest. Allowed more air in. Let her breathe easier.

It took time, and continuous coaching from Alisha, but she did it. For the first time in her life, she breathed in, deep, held it. And out. What more might she be capable of, with time? She wasn't quite her old self. There, there exactly, was the truth. She was _not_ herself. She was _new_. Maybe with her new eyes, body, brain, she _could_ adapt. There were new difficulties in being Salem, but new strengths too.

She found something behind the fear. Something different. Different, but good, and strong. Not the anticipation before a warm meal. Not the relief after escaping someone's vicious claws. Not the awe during a nature film, when the camera rose above a canopy to reveal an unimaginably vast expanse. But it was close. And it let her breathe.

This was really happening. All she'd hoped for… within her reach.

Alisha was speaking, guiding her breaths and inviting her to control of each part of her body in turn, to understand how it had changed, to take her time in experiencing the strangeness of it all. To welcome each thought and feeling one at a time.

She tried. It seemed to take a lifetime. Somehow, she managed.

Once the tide started to subside, it became almost… fun. Now fingers. Now toes. Now ears, still able to pin back against her skull and turn towards Alisha's snapping fingers. Now tongue, strange and unfamiliar in her mouth, but nevertheless under her control.

It was going to be alright. She was going to be okay.

She opened her eyes.

"Feeling better now, kitten?"

Speech could wait. An affirmative miaow would do. It came out okay, but so much deeper than she was used to.

"Sounds like you are," said Alisha, smiling.

With some coaxing, Salem rose from the bed and from her stupor. Sitting was hard. Her body weighed so much now. It was too far away from her. She'd much rather be curled up in the tightest ball possible, but this way was better for communication, so she struggled on with it. She was stable, at least. Her faintness subsiding. Her breath more or less even. Her exhaustion somehow possible to bear.

She did, however, have to make several adjustments to her tail's resting position before it was tolerable.

She looked up at Alisha's face, more carefully this time. She saw things now that had been invisible to her the last time she was fully conscious. Her hair wasn't entirely dark: it was actually streaked through with some other colour. There was something about her expressions that marked her from her colleagues — but what it was exactly was beyond Salem's perception. Something about her scent, too, was different…

"Feels like nothing else has in all your life, right?" said Alisha.

Salem blinked slowly and nodded. Alisha blinked slowly back. Those humans still paying attention clearly didn't understand the gesture, as they were staring quite uncomfortably. Without looking round at them, Alisha waved them away.

"Trust me," Alisha told Salem, "it might be pretty overwhelming now, and you'll probably feel a bit freaked out a few more times going forward, but it's worth it. It's so worth it. You're gonna be able to do almost anything at all. There aren't many like… many like _you_ , you know? With your potential. Mind and body both somewhere between human and pokémon… it's exciting, right? You're in good company, kitten. You'll be just fine."

Salem drank it all up, wide-eyed.

Everything would be okay. Everything would be fantastic. She could handle herself. Learn. Even be special.

She raised a weary arm and signed [THANK YOU. FRIEND/HUMAN.]

Something went wrong along the way, because her hands didn't go where she expected them to, and the motions were vague and amateurish. She could sign better than tried again and just barely got the signs to form. Was she just tired? She was just tired. Yes.

The clumsy signing must have amused Alisha, because she looked down and to the side, and grinned. "Sure, kitten," she said.

Salem concentrated harder on her next signs. Aligned her arms with great care. Thought it through. [WHAT WILL HAPPEN-?] she asked, before her hands cramped up, and she wrung them, wincing.

"What happens next depends on you," said Alisha, softly. "You should rest first, probably for a while. Once you're feeling well enough, then we can try teaching you to walk, use your hands, maybe even talk. But only when you're up for it. Please rest as long as you need to. Most new hybrids take a couple weeks to get their strength up."

Salem had no energy left in her, but she wanted to do those things so badly she felt she could substitute sheer intensity of desire for actual bodily strength. She concentrated on bringing her hands up in front of her face and making the right movements. The signs came more easily every time. So easily that it would have shocked her if she'd had any room left in her body to feel shock. She knew exactly what she wanted to say almost in an instant; it was the physical actions that were hard. Her arms spoke a different language to her now, moving in ways she wasn't used to, and aching instantly whenever they did. Were they even the same limbs as before? Why was it so hard to make familiar signs? Somehow, she managed.

Paw to her chest, then a clutching motion. [I want.] A motion from her mouth, moving forward. [To speak.] Hand-over-hand motions. [To walk.] More subtle motions now, ending in a raised paw, high as it could go. [And, I will try very hard.]

They were halting, staccato movements, ineloquent and cautious. Her hands hurt and she couldn't figure out how to move her fingers separately yet. It wasn't anything like as skilled as what Church could manage. It was still some of the best signing she'd ever done in her life.

"No way, kitten. Even bipeds take a few days before they can hope to walk around. You need rest!"

Her tail thumped the bed in quiet anger. [Walk. I want to walk. I can.]

"No way-"

She yowled, signed. [I will walk.]

"Not now, Salem-"

[Walk now!] she signed with force. She hissed as she did, showing off her fangs.

Before Alisha could decline another time, Salem grappled with herself and managed to get a couple limbs over the bed rails, preparing to throw herself off with or without help.

"Alright!" said Alisha, hauling Salem back over before she hurt herself. "We'll get you walking soon enough." Was she impressed? Concerned? Her expressions escaped Salem. "We'll start with standing upright. Let's get those legs carefully on the floor, okay? And I do mean carefully."

She unfastened the rails at the bedside and pulled them down. It took time, but Salem got her hind paws off the bed and below her. If she moved suddenly, she felt faint, so she placed her pads on the floor and gingerly pushed off from the bed. She nearly toppled over, but Alisha was there, hands on either side of Salem's torso, balancing her. She stood, tail and arms rigidly thrust out and apart as she found a precarious balance.

"Now, you're a purrloin, so you might think this'll be easy just because you've walked on your hind legs before. It's _not_ going to be easy. Your legs are exhausted, for one, and your centre of gravity is different. If you were another species, I wouldn't even let you try standing. So here's what we're going to do..."

The plan was simple. With Salem's arm over Alisha's shoulders, the human could take much of the hybrid's weight. The support made a real difference as Salem took her first steps in her new body. They were shaky, difficult steps, but her swelling pride made them worth it. Her chest heaved as she tried to keep up the energy to take her own weight. Unsupported walking, let alone running, would have to come later. Not only did she have to learn _how_ to walk on her new legs, but there was very little strength left in them. No strength at all, in fact.

Her near-collapse wasn't long in coming. Her legs shortly gave way beneath her like so much jellied fish, and she slid to the floor, despite her best efforts to cling to Alisha's shoulder. Alisha didn't even wince as Salem's claws dug for purchase. Why was that? Salem looked up at her from the floor, not sure what expression she could make with her own face. Her throat was burning again. This was proof that she wasn't ready to walk after all. As much as it stung, there was no denying it.

"Don't worry, kitten. You did well."

Alisha helped her back into the bed to do some light sulking, and reassured her that the emergency call button on the bedside table would bring someone if she needed help. She was going to attend to the next morph who needed support waking up, but she would be back soon, so don't worry, and did Salem need anything before she left?

She certainly did.

The first thing she asked for was water, realising as she tried to punctuate her signs with quiet miaows that her throat was still painfully dry. Someone fetched her a cup of water from a sink across the room. Alisha asked if they had any water bowls — they did not. Salem signed a small thanks and held the thing between both hands, lapping carefully at the surface. She was just about dexterous enough to tip the water level towards her face, but her arms were still weak, and she spilt some in the effort. She refused help drinking it, of course. There had to be some limit to what she needed assistance with.

Satisfied that Salem was feeling sufficiently well, Alisha gave her a wave goodbye.

Salem returned it, but she wasn't sure if Alisha saw.

She considered calling out or trying to follow, but collapsing had been humiliating enough the first time.

If she wasn't going to walk, she'd need something else to do besides lying in bed. Some mewling and charades earned her a magazine belonging to one of the ward staff, something with plenty of pictures to look at. Mostly, they were pictures of humans. The human owner asked if she needed help turning the pages, and she signed a perfunctory [NO]. If she needed help, she would ask. She touched it with her fingertips, and pulled them back as her claws punctured the delicate material. She tried to slide the pages over with only her pads. At first, she couldn't get the hang of it, and she tore the paper more than once. Gradually, painstaking pawing at the pages taught her how to turn first one, then the next.

It wasn't fascinating content, but staring at the colourful pages fascinated Salem all the same. It was a joy to see the new hues which now presented themselves to her, to soak them all up at once with her newly-improved vision. She cajoled a passing nurse over to ask him what colours things were by pointing at them and making the sign for [question]. It took a little while, but she had him cycle through every possible intended meaning before he eventually found the right answer. Getting specific, yet abstract information out of people like [what colour is that item of clothing?] was superficially difficult, but it was like opening a food cupboard door. Easy once you persisted long enough to learn the knack.

She discovered 'red' from the magazine by pointing at a man's clothes and being patiently answered by the nurse. Red. It had always been there, at least for humans. Now she could actually see it, really see it, instead of perceiving it as identical to orange, brown, even some purples. The change really was not in the world, but in herself. The thought was strange, that her eyes were different now. Forever. She decided she was okay with that. Maybe other hybrids would struggle with accepting the change. But not her. She chose this. She wouldn't regret it.

Although this was like nothing Salem had ever gone through in her life, the man seemed to think that he had more important things to be doing. It was a struggle to correct him on this point. She decided it didn't matter. She was too busy grappling with the dawn of a world in full colour. Brighter, richer, more whole. Brimming over with colours she'd never dreamed existed. Like red.

Eventually, the nurse carefully insisted that he get back to more important work. Salem quietly tolerated the loss of her translator and the vague anxiety that came with being dependent without someone around to depend on, and spent a little while flicking through the rest of the magazine. Eventually she ran out of pages and pushed it over the side of the bed onto the floor. It was now time to stare at things, she supposed.

But staring at things was in her past. She needn't become bored for hours yet. She had barely been introduced to this body, and she could get to know it a little better, even bound to her bed as she was. She became consumed with consuming every sensation, even discomfort and pain, that her new form afforded her. Her body's greater weight pressed her down into the bed. Her fur still felt very much the same: smooth from meticulous grooming, but as dull as it had been since she'd stopped getting regular meals. Her pads were still pads but they were more sensitive now, softer, and had not grown in proportion with the rest of her hands. Neither had her claws — at least, not quite. She held up a hand and licked the back of it, finding that although her tongue still _worked_ , her fur tasted different. Or was it that her tongue did?

As time passed, Salem kept moving her attention to another change, another hurt. Her eyes hurt, her paws hurt, her belly hurt. None of them felt like they belonged to her yet. But they would. Soon. It was difficult to relax, but she was still a cat, and therefore an expert in getting comfortable. Eventually, she found a position to curl up in that didn't put any strain on her tremendously strained body, and she managed to sleep.

In her dreams, Salem was running, running on her two legs, for miles and miles and miles, just running, and never getting tired.


End file.
